Luke's Bloggie Blog: Oh Are You? Our First Day at Our First OR Show

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Oh Are You? Our First Day at Our First OR Show

Representing The Climbing Zine crew, Shaun Matusewicz and I hit up our first ever OR show today. We arrived into Salt Lake City after driving through lots o' snow on the mountain passes. It was raining as we rolled in, but then turned to big fat flakes of snow as we headed into the Salt Palace Convention Center. No doubt we were both thinking of our good friend Adam Lawton, who recently died in an avalanche. Adam's home was Salt Lake, and I know he would have been proud that we were representing The Climbing Zine at the OR show.

We didn't really know what to expect, and we're treating this first show as a recon mission for the future. We have big plans for The Climbing Zine and hope to attract the biggest sponsors out there for our publication. We know this will take time so for this show we're soaking it all in to see how things go down within the industry.

We really enjoyed ourselves. We chatted with some really friendly people within the industry, and saw some climbing rock stars in person (Chris Sharma, Lynn Hill, Dean Potter). We got to check out some new gear, and drank several varieties of good beer (sometimes a rarity in Utah :). Most of all we received a positive welcoming from the various folks who checked out The Climbing Zine, and we truly know we have a future in the climbing world. It's only a matter of time before we reach a large audience. We're taking our time with this, because we know all good things happen in good time. And, we are PSYCHED for tomorrow.

(This is where I stayed last night and woke up this morning, the Castleton Tower campsite. I love waking up here, and wished I could have started the day by climbing this. But alas, I didn't have a partner, and had to meet Shaun in Crescent Junction by 10:00 a.m.)