The country’s biggest collection of outdoor gear manufactures gathered in Salt Lake City, Utah for the annual Outdoor Retailer Show this weekend (Aug 9th – 12th).

The OR show is a whirl-wind of gear, celebrities, hype and money. But so little of those fine qualities are directed at the indoor climbing industry, and even less to the route setter. Of the 32 climbing related companies that were on my list to visit during the show, only 6 of them court setters.

But I was a man on a mission; a mission of education and information.

I wanted to find out what new holds were coming out and if there was any gear out there that could make a setters job easier. To do this I had to, in some cases, explain the profession of route setting; what we do and what we need to do it.

Here’s what I found.

Asana

The first booth I visited was Asana packworks. These guys are making serious headway into the gym flooring market but what I was more interested in was their new line of holds.

They’re introducing a new line of kid & beginner friendly urethane holds that actually explain climbing as you climb. The series are words like “jug”, “pinch”, “sloper”, “crimp”. This should help those kids to become strong and smart all at the same time.

Asana also featured their route setting bag, which isn’t new but still worthy of being mentioned. The bag is the only product on the market, other than climbing holds that is specifically made for the route setter.

Routesetter.com actually received the bag a few months ago and is in the process of reviewing it. From what Jamie Sproull, Asana President tells me, is that the bag is selling very well but will be redesigned with the help of the Routesetter.com review.

Nicros
At the Nicros booth I ran into Nic Oklobziga who gave me the run down on their new piggy-back/volume. The “No Evil” is a volume that can take modular holds and can take two other smaller volumes, the “See no evil” and the “Hear no evil” which can also take more holds.

This is one big ass hold combo that could take any wall you’re bored with and make it into a completely different wall. Perhaps a bit too much for the setter concentrating on efficiency, as it could take a while to put the thing(s) up.

Nicros also introduced at the show one of the coolest volumes I’ve seen. The “Apex” is a smooth slice of fiberglass that can take holds, though it would almost be a shame to mess with such a perfect shape

Halo Holds

The shapers at Halo holds started carving holds for the first time ever, just a few months ago and have come to the show to introduce themselves and many of their large holds.

The company has staked out x-large hold buyers as their primary target market. Mark Bradley, President of Halo, says the company is all about making big holds “because they’re fun”.

We’ll see if they are still having fun when they figure out what every other major hold maker has discovered. Big holds are expensive and are rarely cost effective. But I’m not one who thinks things can’t change, and I hope Halo can do it. And from what I saw they’re off to a good start.

SoIll Holds

So Ill steps out this year into the realm of the absurd. Their new line of holds is by far the farthest any company has gone from the roots of indoor climbing (whatever the roots are).

So Ill’s market is something not easily defined and neither are their holds. Their new line of holds looks like hands, teeth and internal organs. As Dave Chancellor say’s “If you want a jug that looks like teeth, we’ve got it.” Nough said.

The teeth are a series of jugs, most of which are big enough to match on. The hands vary in their style and function and some I cant even tell what to do with them. The internal organs are mostly fat pinches or slopers.

All of the holds shown were scented with fresh wintergreen mint.

Revolution

Revolution introduced a new hold material that is made out 10% Pre-consumer waste. That’s PRE-consumer waste, stuff that comes from the manufacturing of…well Clark Sheilk, President of Revolution, wouldn’t tell me exactly where it comes from, but either way its stuff that would other wise have gone into a landfill and is instead being recycled into climbing grips.

The new poly-urethane material took Revo two months of testing and finally brings their hold quality up to modern standards.

They claim to have 200 new shapes this year but for whatever reason only brought a handful of these to share with the buying public.

Morganic/ETCH

Many people have heard of ETCH, the hold company from Baltimore. And perhaps you’ve run across climbingholds.com through your travels around the internet. But most outside of Utah have never heard of Morganic. So what do they have in common? This year marks the consolidation of all three entities into one giant company.

While they didn’t actually have a booth at the show, but JT Clark, owner/president of Morganic, and Ben Montgomery, founder and shaper of ETCH, were there to give me the details.

So here’s the break down. Morganic, a hold company just bought ETCH, another hold company and it will all be sold on the website, climbingholds.com. The website will sell Morganic and ETCH holds and within the year will be selling other top brands as well.

A one stop shopping bonanza. The site will also sell hold shaping supplies like foam and carving tools. JT says that, “We’ll be bringing out a new product on Sept. 13th”, though he wouldn’t say what it will be.

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