Living, Playing & Writing in the Outdoors
Photos by Ryan Freitas
Five days, miles of aisles, a hundred handshakes and a thousand innovations. But better than telling you about the latest Ourdoor Retailer Show, I’ll let you see for yourself.
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It did not start off well. The organizers of the Outdoor Retailer Show– the largest industry expo of outdoors products in the country- posted the wrong address for today. So not only did I rise late for the 8 a.m. kick off but I wound up on the wrong side of Pineview Reservoir near Ogden. The nice lady at the kiosk shook her head and said I wasn’t alone.
The outdoor demo is the official kick-off for the Show and a unique opportunity to test the latest paddle, camping, GPS, fishing, GPS/geocaching, hiking, and trail running gear from more than 100 manufacturers.
I got to the Demo Day site by noon and for the first time I can remember I did NOT do the Magellan GPS Scavenger Hunt. The geocaching event has long been a favorite and pretty much the only time in a year where I play with a GPS. Instead, I took in the sights, the gear and the waves on the lake.
My first stop was Skechers to try out a pair of their new GOwalk 2. The lightweight, mesh slip on not only uses their VStride technology to promote a walking step and multi-direction traction on the sole for stability but the breathable upper and midsole cush made it a killer transitional shoe to take from the sand to the water.
Aquapac shared info on their new waterproof duffle and backpack. I especially liked that the backpack looked more like a pack than a drybag.
This handy tool was an emergency cutter. But if you were going to carry it around, why not just take your Buck knife?
PowerBar is introducing a new line of performance energy blend gels like strawberry, apple, mango. They looked tasty but Sage would rather suck on a ginormous snowcone from the Olukai Sandals booth to promote their Shaved Ice collection.
Did you know you can use the insect repellent wipes on your dog to keep fleas and flies away? 
Now here was my favorite gadget of the day. The Waka Waka is a pocket-sized, solar powered light that will also charge your phone or Mp3. It has a built-in stand with a center hole so you can hang it from your tent ceiling, set it on a desk or sit it on a water bottle. Waka Waka’s Victor Brandstetter told me that for every sale of the unit the company gives another to an impoverished child or family so students can study at night and have a better chance in school.
Last year, I didn’t get on the water. This year, I SUPed my buns off.
Yes, that’s Laird Hamilton on his signature SUP.
And this is my 6 year old on LuckyBum‘s kids SUP.
Stand-Up Paddleboards are to the summer outdoor industry what snowboards were to the ski industry back in the 90s. Everybody and their frat brothers are making them. One day the little guy will drop off or get swallowed up by the bigger companies but not today; not this year.
It makes sense when you think about it. A town has to explode in population before those mean old fast-food joints and giant, big box stores invade every nook and cranny, pushing out the mom and pop establishments. We’re lucky that there are still smaller communities in the Cache Valley and Box Elder County like Logan and Brigham City that have been able to stay true to their roots, with their hearts and hands solidly planted in a wholesome, organic, simple, agricultural existence. Take a day and head north for a food lovers tour of this charming area.
Start your day in Logan with a bold cup of Highland Grog or Logan Canon Trail at the family owned Caffe Ibis. The artisan custom coffee roasting house has been around since 1976 where it has evolved into serving Triple Certified, Organic, Fair Trade, and Smithsonian Shade Grown “Bird-Friendly” Arabica beans. Those seals mean the coffee is grown without chemical herbicides, pesticides, and artificial fertilizers or with minimal inputs. Their hot breakfasts are as good as their coffee. You can find whole beans at places like Whole Foods in Park City if you don’t feel up to the 2-hour road trip.
We couldn’t leave Logan, Utah, without a loaf. If it’s the Sabbath. How about Challah? The name Crumb Brothers may not be widely known throughout the state but if you’ve savored the bread at the New Yorker or the Pub at Trolley Square you’ve tasted their fare. The artisan bakery is not just another place that overuses the term. No, ‘artisan’ adeptly applies to the 1000-1500 loaves John Reichert and his crew craft in their eco-friendly bakery charged with a geothermal heating and cooling system and surrounded outdoors with native plants.
Each day, nine to 12 different types of loaves are baked from ciabatta to polenta Jack and served in their front end café. Call for a tour for a behind the scenes look at bread making. (If only it was a hands-on tour.) The loaves are also sold wholesale to markets like Whole Foods and taken to seasonal farmers’ markets.
Brigham City Fruit Way
Who needs a farmers market when you have a fruit highway? Stand after stand of locally grown fruits and vegetables are on sale daily from May to November along Highway 89 between Willard and Brigham City. Ten miles of peaches, plums, apricots, tomatoes, snap beans, zucchini and more are hand-picked by local farmers and friends from the 30-plus farms in the area. There are even U-Pick ’em places if you don’t want strangers touching your goods.
Make sure you grab a fresh shake blended with chunks of your favorite fruits from Pettingill’s when the heat starts to bear down.
They say necessity is the mother of invention. So when little Kyle Nanno was cruising back from Colorado with his family he noticed there was no place in Utah to buy raw honey. Eight years later the 25-year-old’s The Honey Jar is winning raves throughout the state.
Unlike pasteurized, filtered honey, The Honey Jar’s honey is as fresh as the day they squeezed it from the honeycombs in his own bee hives; filled with enzymes, pollen, anti-oxidants and yeast to promote healthy digestion. Rumor has it that a teaspoon of raw honey a day keeps the allergies away. Try the lavender, clover, dandelion or raspberry honey for added flavor and nutrition.
You can’t eat these luscious dollops of soap art but they sure smell delicious. Becky Yeagar moved her Logan home business to a small shop near Main Street so even more people could enjoy her goat’s milk creations. But the former chemist mainstay is still primarily internet orders and wholesale.
When skin is too sensitive for regular harsh soaps you just might appreciate the lavish indulgence of vitamins, minerals, proteins, and alpha-hydroxy acids found in Yeagar’s goat’s milk and shea butter creations like Utah Mountain Meadow, Logan Canyon Backcountry, and Bear Lake Raspberries.
Idle Isle’s been making delicious handmade candies since 1921 and while the digs look like they could use a serious facelift, they better not dare fiddle with the nibbles.
Rock candy, chocolates, and fudge are all decadent and worth every calorie. Locals will recommend the Almond Toffee Cremes with their perfectly round soft butter-cream centers. Trust the locals.
The 50s diner on Main is your cliché greasy spoon. Mini jukeboxes in the booths, dingy flooring and open kitchen for generating the usual fare of burgers and sandwiches. Get an order of hand-cut fries and toss them back with a hand-made peach shake. Their ice cream is made on site so even if the atmosphere is stale, the treats aren’t.
The only view of Logan, Utah, I wanted to have was from my rear view mirror after my experience with a bully (i.e. general manager) at Ensign Honda this spring. It was so bad I swore I’d never buy a Honda for the rest of my life. You know it’s bad when you shun Honda itself. However, it’s been three months and, like a bad date, I’m over it.
My excitement built as our small group of writers entered Logan Canyon. My host promised a whirlwind adventure in Cache Valley and Rich counties and given the heat in Salt Lake City I wasn’t about to resist a trip to higher ground. Two and a half hours later ( 30 minutes of which was due to road construction) we were dining on the deck of Cooper’s sports pub overlooking the famous turquoise waters of Bear Lake.
Utah’s second largest natural freshwater lake straddles the Utah/Idaho border and jumps in population from 600 to 10,000 in the peak of the summer. Today, a weekday, the area feels relatively calm. It’s hot-90 degrees, the water’s 71- but the looming clouds seem to keep boaters and fishermen at bay. We opt for a raspberry with lime shake from the Hometown Drive-in and an afternoon in the Minnetonka Cave.
Raspberry Days may happen on just one weekend a year in Bear Lake but the raspberry shakes served from several roadside stands can be had all summer.
A hunter stumbled on the Minnetonka Cave in 1907 but it wasn’t until 1947 that the half-mile cavern of creepy limestone rockformations was open to the public. For $8 per person, you too can cool off in the 40-degree tunnel and, in our case, avoid the rain.
The small corridor of rock, lined with a metal railing lead us up and down more than 400 steep steps. Some visitors were visibly distressed over the climb but personally I needed to exercise knowing dinner at Café Sabor was coming up.
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Local Park City, Utah, realtors are buzzing about cleaning up after Zillow. The multi-million dollar real estate listing site trades publicly and apparently doesn’t care where they get their info and whether it’s accurate. The battle for off-season home buying is on and with Utah home sales on the rise and Park City sitting on less inventory this spring, there’s no time to waste. “[Zillow] provides wrong data, or duplicate listings, to make it appear they are providing more information. Any normal business operating the way they do would quickly be out of business,” said Sean Matyja,
Zillow.com, Trulia.com, Realtor.com, Homes.com are all the same. They get their the data from realtors who choose to subscribe but apparently now those sites are selling ads to realtors and forcing them to pay for the leads generated; many boards are opting out. “I just heard from a client who got an email alert on a bank-owned home in Park Meadows. I called the original listing agent who was shown as the listing brokerage; he had sold it a couple years ago! Is Zillow now making up listings from old data to bump up their numbers?” asked Matyja. He also says Utah is a “non-disclosure” state. Real estate prices are not public record here so tax records may not match sold information. “Zillow pulls public tax records to determine their Zestimate values. The tax records are simply assessed values Summit County uses to determine tax rates, they are not necessarily the sold prices. When I look at what Zillow often posts as their Zestimates, it’s a joke,” he added. I just checked my home on Zillow and it’s about $100k over its actual market value. I went to Realtor.com- the MLS search site for all realtors- and found a better estimate but wrong information (i.e. the square footage, number of rooms, etc). If you want true details, sold values and market values of real estate in Park City you are going to have to find a realtor you trust. How do you meet them? You know how every server in an L.A. restaurant in an actor? Well, every server and ski instructor in Park City is a realtor. Just ask around. |
