Prizes, exhibits in store at Cadillac Mountain Sports

A couple of weeks ago I told you briefly about the Adventure and Travel Festival at Cadillac Mountain Sports in Bangor from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Nov. 18. It’s the second annual event, and Brad Ryder, the store’s owner, says this year there’ll be more than $1,000 worth of door prizes awarded by drawings for folks who show up.

These incentives are in addition to an impressive list of exhibitors offering advice, instruction and services for the coming colder months, and a storewide 20 percent discount on items purchased that day.

If you’re a gearhead and into the outdoors, it’s not a bad time to pick up that can’t-live-without item you’ve had your eye on. If you’re looking for information on places to go and things to do, truck on down.

And if you’re in the market for a flu or pneumonia shot, Main 1 Travel of Bangor will be there with representatives of Bangor’s Immunization Clinic to fix you up. The flu shots are $5 and the pneumonia shots cost $20, said Peter Ramsay, director of marketing for the travel services company. For people covered by Part B Medicare there will be no charge for the pneumonia shot.

It will be a good time to talk about that trip you’ve been fantasizing about for so long. Wouldn’t a kayaking adventure to the Cook Islands or the Baja peninsula be nice around the middle of February?

If travel to exotic places is not in your cards, perhaps one of the other exhibitors scheduled to be there will have something for you to do to help you enjoy the colder months.

For example, Karen Francoeur of Castine Kayak Adventures will be at the show with information and opportunities to sign up for a variety of kayaking and skiing classes and adventures. She’s offering several levels of kayak instruction at pool clinics throughout the winter. Beginner kayak clinics include the basics of kayaking equipment strokes and stability. The next level offers instruction for paddlers who have some kayak experience and who are interested in fine-tuning their performance. The third level is for more advanced paddlers who want to focus on the finer details of paddling with finesse as your instructor critiques your style to make improvements.

Francoeur also offers rescue clinics and rolling clinics in the pool, as well as kayak tours out of Castine in the warmer months, team-building retreats with True Course and Castine Kayak Adventures, and yoga and kayak retreats. For those interested in snow and ice, she offers cross-country skiing and skating instruction as well as day and weekend winter trips.

If you’re looking to gather some helpful information on how to dress for success in the winter, Cadillac’s staff has been boning up on Gore-Tex fabrics. It used to be you could throw on your wool long johns, a wool shirt and a heavy wool jacket and pants and survive winter. Eventually the itching would go away.

Nowadays there is a host of high-tech fabrics available to clothing manufacturers. These wonder threads will keep you dry in the wet, keep the wind at bay and allow excess perspiration to escape leaving you in a relatively dry cocoon.

Gore-Tex, the granddaddy of modern breathable laminates, has been around for more than 20 years and you’ll see its hang tag on a multitude of outdoor clothing from hats and gloves to jackets and pants, shoes, boots and socks. The membrane is used extensively in technical clothing such as dry suits for kayaking and waders for fishing. Its Immersion Technology fabric is waterproof and breathable, even when submerged.

The company also uses its expertise at keeping the wind from robbing your body of heat. Microfleece garments with the Windstopper hang tag include jackets, gloves and headwear.

The company recently developed another, more breathable laminate called XCR that is 25 percent more breathable than classic Gore-Tex fabrics. Check with Cadillac staff to find out what products have this new technology. Got a specific question? Ryder said his staff would be happy to give you an answer, or find you one – such as what’s the best combination of clothes to wear when I’m snowshoeing?

And if you happen to be thinking about walking on snow, Dave Adsit, a representative of Tubbs Snowshoes, will be present to show you the latest models and answer questions about this fast-growing winter sport.

Snowshoeing, according to Tubbs, has shed “its backwoods image to become the latest winter sport rage. Lighter, more durable materials, streamlined shapes and easy-to-use bindings combine for more efficient snowshoes that appeal to athletes of all levels. Snowshoeing, whether running, hiking or walking, is an excellent low-impact winter exercise.”

And it’s one anyone can do at any pace. I’ve found it a most relaxing and rewarding way of getting out and enjoying winter. You don’t have to have a designated place to go, just head for your favorite walking or hiking place, strap on your snowshoes and have fun. After the initial purchase price of the snowshoes, there really isn’t anything else you need to buy, at least if you’ve got the basic winter clothes and boots.

I use a pair of hiking poles with larger baskets for the snow, but an old pair of ski poles will do. In fact, you don’t really need to have poles, but they help with balance.

The Tubbs name is practically synonymous with modern snowshoes. The company has been using a patented polymer decking material called ArcTec since 1989. It’s the same material used to manufacture alpine ski boots, ski bases, and your car bumper, the company says, and after “nearly 10 years of use, ArcTec has never cracked or punctured and has been used to cross the North Pole, the South Pole and the Great Salt Desert.”

The festival will be a good time to talk to Adsit about Tubbs and compare his product to others in the store. Ask about bindings, durability, weight, ease of use, proper size (to accommodate your weight and pack), guarantees and the like.

If you haven’t tried snowshoeing yet, but happen to be looking for something to do to keep you active and perhaps keep those love handles from becoming bumpers, keep in mind that tromping around on snowshoes is a pretty good workout.

Here’s what Tubbs has to say about the sport: “The use of ski or backcountry poles gets the upper body moving, lending stability to your stride in variable terrain, steep ascents or descent, and heavier snow conditions and helps condition your arm, shoulder and back muscles. Snowshoeing is also a great rehabilitative therapy for people suffering from knee or ankle injuries as there is little or no impact due to the snow’s soft cushioning effect on the stride.”

It’s a good way to burn calories and see some beautiful scenery while doing it. For someone about my size, clomping around on packed snow for an hour and a half on rolling terrain burns up about 900 calories – reason enough for me to get out often.

If you’d like to learn what rock climbing is all about, take the opportunity to talk with Jeff Butterfield of Atlantic Climbing School of Bar Harbor. Instruction level for the seasonal business (May-October) ranges from beginner to cliffhanger (my words). The school’s instructors are carefully chosen for their abilities and depth of experience, Butterfield said. When you go out to climb, you’ll never be with more than two others and often it’s one-on-one, he told me. Count this Saturday as a chance to see what climbing is all about.

Other exhibitors scheduled to be attending the festival include Marmot, Outward Bound, Sugarloaf Training Center, the YMCA and the Maine Island Trail Association.

If the wealth of information and the chance to meet some neat people isn’t enough incentive to check things out on Saturday, you should at least drop by and put your name in the hat for a chance at some great door prizes. Ryder has put together an impressive list of goodies: a North Face Talkeetna jacket; a Marmot Precip jacket, Thule ski-snowboard rack; Lowe daypack, Turtle Fur headbands, Tubbs snowshoes; Sweetwater water filter; Seal-Line dry bags; MSR Pocket Rocket stove; Crazy Creek chair; Leki trekking poles; Dana Design water bottles and a Cascade Therma-Rest.

When I dropped by his store the other day Ryder showed me the MSR Pocket Rocket stove. I put it on my wish list. What a cutie! It weighs 3 ounces and will fit in your pocket. But crank it onto an isobutane cylinder and you can boil a liter of water in 3 minutes, 30 seconds! You can get a little more than hour of burn time at full 8,300 Btu throttle on one 227-gram canister, and it can be adjusted down to just a simmer. It should satisfy the minimalist in all of us. If you win it and haven’t a use for it, keep me in mind!

Jeff Strout’s column is published on Thursdays. He can be reached at 990-8202 or by e-mail at jstrout@bangordailynews.net.