Outdoor Retailer Winter 2011

Snow, wind and semis made the trip to Salt Lake pretty exciting. Photo by Caroline Treadway.

Exactly twice a year, at the Outdoor Retailer show in Salt Lake City, you can hang with the raddest athletes in the outdoor industry AND check out the freshest new gear that hasn’t even hit the stores. This winter’s record breaking OR show had 18,000 plus attendees, featured over 800 brands and brought about $16 million to Salt Lake City, according to Devaki Murch, event contributor. Energy was really high, people are definitely buying and the brands seem to be really strong in all their new product,” Murch said. “It’s definitely on the upturn.”

But let’s start at the beginning, a harrowing drive from Boulder, Colorado to Salt Lake, on a snowy, blowy and desolate stretch of Interstate 80 through southern Wyoming. Luckily my copilot, Timmy O’Neill, is a pretty funny guy, and kept us both laughing while we skidded 80 mph into a complete whiteout, using semis as visual guard rails. Read the rest of the story at venturethere.com.

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