Outdoor Retailer Open Air Demo
One word sums up the Open Air Demo Day: SUP. If you didn’t know, SUP (stand up paddling) is a mix of kayaking and surfing. You can sit, kneel or stand on a surfboard-like platform. It was by far the most popular and the talk of the town. Everywhere you looked, there were people on a SUP board.
Besides cruising around on the water all day, a couple of other things caught our attention:
Emotion Kayaks: These sturdy products are proudly made in the USA. Geared towards getting more “butts in boats” by creating beginner-friendly kayaks like the "comet", as well as sweet upgrades to more aggressive kayaks like the “Bliss”. Emotion also offers sit-on top kayaks as well as a paddle board. Their "traverse" paddle board is super stable and easy to navigate. With reasonable prices, it makes it easy for the recreational outdoorsman to afford it.
Mile High Mountaineering: MHM already packs a punch to the outdoor world with their brightly colored multi-day packs. Coming out (not too soon though) are their new line of day packs including the "Incline", "Bolt" and "Colfax". Along with the day packs are a multi-day lightweight "Salute" featuring a state of the art "S" zipper. MHM's winter bag, the "Powder Keg" makes me want to skip summer and test this baby out on the slopes right now.
Fikkes: Pronounced like "hikes" but with an F, this Fly Hiker takes you high into secret mountain lakes with out all the fishing gear. Basically, if a trekking pole and fly fishing rod had babies, this would be it! The "fikking" (fishing/hiking) rod is very sturdy when trekking and fishing.
More to come, but for now...back to the floor!
Adventure On!
~MtnMama
Randi Hitchcock
MtnMama
A fun loving adventure-aholic, MtnMama has a passion for all things outdoors, photography and meeting like-minded folks.
First is it easy to balance
First is it easy to balance on the board without tipping over?...and second, can you really use the fikking rod to catch fish? I'm used to the feel and easy handling of the Daiwa Steez rods.
Hey there Mick! All SUP
Hey there Mick! All SUP boards are a bit different in width and length, but for the most part, if you approach the board on knees first and then stand, you're good to go. One of the boards from Emotion, couldn't even be flipped by Yeti even when he was pedaling his feet from side to side. http://www.emotionkayaks.com/sup/traverse/ As far as Fikkes goes, we haven't had the chance to test it ourselves yet, but it seems to work for them! :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XS-RKozGLfQ#! Thanks for the questions!