The Red Rock Rendezvous (RRR) is now in our rearview mirror (literally, as I am writing this as we make the drive back to Salt Lake City), and I must say it was one of the best that Mountain Gear has put on to date. Maybe it was the weather – warm and sunny on Friday and Saturday; maybe it was the later date – moving from mid-March to early April; maybe it was the awesome giveaways provided by Gregory. Whatever it was, people seemed psyched to get outside and were eager to enjoy some warm weather. RRR is always our kickoff to event season, and we are always glad to make the trip to Sin City, though we try to stay away from the strip. If you’ve never been to Red Rock Canyon, it is an amazing gem just a few miles outside of downtown Las Vegas. It’s a beautiful place, and magical when you compare it to the strip. There’s climbing for every ability level, superb mountain biking, road biking, and not a bad place to go for a hike.
The Gregory tent was set up early setting the stage for all the other vendors to follow suit. Red Rock Canyon is notorious for the wind, and this year was no exception. Our tent suffered some minor injuries (for the second year in a row) but nothing we weren’t able to fix onsite, whew. This year the wind held off until Saturday night, but in true Red Rock fashion tents were flying about, and sand got into any and everything. When event organizers tell you to make sure you are staked out properly, you should listen. Unfortunately, some people learned the hard way, but luckily no one was hurt, and we didn’t hear of anyone losing a tent (though I know some people had to chase ‘em down!).
New Belgium was on hand pouring bottomless glasses all afternoon and into the evening. CLIF family winery (yup, same family as CLIF BAR) had the same setup, and there was a squirrel suit dive bomb, a giant connect four, slack line for days from the Yoga Slackers, a Dyno competition, and plenty to keep you occupied even if you didn’t sign up for a clinic.
As always, we were more than excited to have Joe Kinder on board with us, as his personality and energy will change anyone’s mood for the better. He’s a pleasure to have at the booth, and sincerely enjoys engaging and inspiring everyone around him. It’s his birthday week, so we want to wish him a big Happy Birthday! Keep on being Joe. (If you ever meet him, ask him for a quick Joega lesson…he’ll know.)
Gregory has been sponsoring the RRR service project for a number of years, and this year we were able to add a few more parking spaces to one of the crag’s parking areas. Big thanks to the 20 or so participants that were able to help make that happen.
We always have some sort of way to engage event attendees, but this year we debuted the ‘Pack-A-Pack’ contest, which went over better than anticipated. We partnered with a bunch of other brands, such as Big Agnes, Outdoor Research, Hydrapak, Black Diamond Equipment, Gerber, Adventure Medical kits, and more for this timed event. Take all of the items that are laid out and pack them in the new Savant58 the fastest. Super simple. The catch was that the fastest two times of the weekend competed on stage Saturday night in a head-to-head battle, winner keep all: pack, tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, stuff sack, hydration reservoir, knife/tool, trekking poles, water bottles, windproof jacket, headlamp, and more! The average time to load all these items up was approximately 50 seconds, which doesn’t sound too bad if you were packing up on a rainy morning. But this is competition! We had a handful of competitors beat the 30 second mark. Kahmien, or “Special ‘K’” as we now know him, had a time of 27:37 seconds and Stephan had a blistering 20:53 seconds! If I didn’t see it myself, I wouldn’t have deemed it possible.
Here comes the fun part. Special ‘K’ definitely spent the better part of what felt like an hour visualizing and working on his strategy. This guy is all business. Once he started to loosen up, doing his Joega exercises, he took off his long sleeve shirt and stated, “Don’t want the shirt to slow me down!” I think he was serious, and well, it worked. 27:37 was good enough to get him to the big dance up on stage. I told him that if he gets the chance, he’ll ‘have’ to take his shirt off on stage. Long story short, I introduced him to the crowd, and let ‘em know he’s going shirtless…for speed obviously. To the crowds chagrin, he did just that. And then informed them how many drinks he’d imbibed to prepare for the event. 7 was the count. From this experience alone, I can say that 7 is too many. Special ‘K’s time went from 27:37 mid day to well over 1:30:00 on stage Saturday night. It may have simply been the on-stage jitters. Following Special ‘K’, as Stephan is approaching the contest table the crowd starts chanting “TAKE IT OFF … TAKE IT OFF … TAKE IT OFF!” (I started laughing so hard on the inside.) In all honesty, Stephan didn’t have much of a choice and did exactly what was asked of him, in the name of speed of course. Stephan’s on stage time was much closer to his mid-day time of 20:53, so clearly he’s a seasoned veteran in front of a crowd. “Take your time Stephan, you have a LEAST a minute left,” I said. Stephan was more than excited to take home the Savant58 and all of its contents, and Special ‘K’ got an Alpaca Duffle for being such a fun sport. This is a contest that you will definitely see from us in the future, so practice up, as these are real life skills (think packing up early in a rain storm)!!!
Mountain Gear, we thank you for the amazing weekend, the new friends we made, along with the old, and are already looking forward to next year!!! Don’t forget to check out the Sh!t people say at the Red Rock Rendezvous.
Special Thanks Goes To:
Mountain Gear, NW Sales Rep Dave Egan, Joe Kinder, Collette McKinery, CLIF Family Winery, Access Fund, New Belgium, MSR, Outdoor Research, 5.10, Hypropak, Black Diamond Equipment, Gerber, Polartec, Adventure Medical Kits, Big Agnes, and all those who attended!!! We’ll see you next year.
RRR throughout the years: http://www.gregorypacks.com/blog/?s=redrock+rendezvous