An Intense Focus on Feet

This past week I spent three days at the Outdoor Retailer Show in Salt Lake City. The show features vendors with product for the outdoors, from tents, backpacks, kayaks, climbing gear, food, clothes, first aid kits, outdoor books, accessories—and of course the reason I was there—footwear. I had a ball walking the aisles meeting people I had emailed and talked to the previous year, and meeting new folks. I came home with many pairs of socks, insoles, and lacing and skin care products. I also spent time looking at shoes—mainly trail shoes and boots. I got a lot of opinions.
     But we need to think about more than just our feet. It’s not just about them. A lot of how our feet respond to our walking, running, and hiking comes from what else we have on our person. In other words, the fanny packs, backpacks and the gear we carry inside these packs—and the weight of all this stuff.
     The focus of many of the posts over the next months will focus on the products I saw at the show. I’ll do some comparisons and a lot of reviews. We’ll have fun as we talk about the manufacturers claims and how that factors into our buying decisions. Longer pieces will be in the e-zine. As expected, the focus will be on feet. It may surprise you how the non-feet stuff enters into the picture because I believe in the end many of these items also affect out feet.