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" SALT LAKE CITY -- The guys who keep you equipped for your adventures--stronger jackets for the hike, smarter knives for the hunt, better kicks for the trail run--seem to have an eternal mission: shaving ounces off your gear while incorporating as much technology as its takes to fight moisture and insulate a man on a mission. The 2008 Outdoor Retailer Winter Market show here this week revealed some twists on the theme. The most interesting new trend has been the introduction of products in that purest of DIY molds--tools and gadgets that let outdoorsmen use what they have laying around in creative and useful ways. It&amp;#039;s all about versatility. In our greatest hits from strolling the convention center the last few days, you&amp;#039;ll find everything from a camp stove that can burn jet fuel in a pinch, to a jacket stuffed with pine cones.  A Stove for All Fuels Coleman Denali Stove | $175    Behold, an omnivorous camping stove--one that can drink whichever fuel you please: kerosene, unleaded gasoline, E85, jet fuel (seriously), or a canister. This isn&amp;#039;t the first stove to make that claim--the company&amp;#039;s Fyrestorm was designed to work with either liquid or gas fuel, as is Brunton&amp;#039;s Vapor AF. But the Denali helps cement the trend. More important, we came away from our demo impressed by how quickly it started up--from fireball to steady blue glow in less than a minute. And the best specs in the world don&amp;#039;t matter if the stove doesn&amp;#039;t want to light up.  The Open-Source Parka Merrell Gatherer Jacket | No pricing    What with grass, leaves and furry little animals everywhere you look, the great outdoors could come filled with natural insulation. Merrell&amp;#039;s Gatherer jacket lets you tap into your surroundings (or your sock drawer) for added warmth. With this pouch-filled jacket, just open up one of several zippers whenever you need a little more warmth, and stuff its empty innards with whatever you want, or whatever&amp;#039;s hanging around--cotton balls, extra gloves and socks come to mind. Unfortunately for scavengers, it&amp;#039;s just a concept for now, and Merrell has no firm plans to bring it to market anytime soon.  The World&amp;#039;s Largest Multitool Wenger Giant Knife | $1200    The purpose of a multitool is to pack as much functionality as possible into something that&amp;#039;s more or less pocket-size. While the gargantuan, 87-tool Swiss Army Knife may defeat that purpose, you might not really care if you&amp;#039;re the kind of guy willing to spend this much to carry around a laser pointer and cigar cutter along with your bottle openers and scissors. And, hey, at least it&amp;#039;s got two key chain loops.  A Greener Midsole Brooks Trance Running Shoe | $130    High-performance running shoes may keep your body in shape, but they are filled with Earth-unfriendly parts. In particular, the foam that marathoners rely on to ward off shin splints can lie in landfills for over 1000 years. These trainers sub out the normal EVA foam midsole for a biodegradable one that they claim completely disappears after 20 years. Brooks hopes to use the new material for all its shoes within a few years, and is keeping the technology open source, so any manufacturer can slip it in for about $5 extra per pair.  A New Way to Sled Zipfy Mini Luge | $40    It&amp;#039;s a shame that, as we grow up, we tend to forget that you don&amp;#039;t need a plane ticket and $1000 worth of equipment to enjoy the snow. You just need something that rolls down hills. We had a chance to try out Zipfy&amp;#039;s newfangled sled on the powder. The handle worked just like a joystick, allowing for relatively easy turning (that isn&amp;#039;t saying much, considering how notoriously difficult it is to steer a sled). It was frightening and fast, and we wiped out. But because of the low-to-ground design and the fact that you&amp;#039;re hovering just above the snow, we never felt in any danger. And because it&amp;#039;s much smaller and lighter than your grandfather&amp;#039;s toboggan (it&amp;#039;s made of lightweight, high-density polyethylene and weighs in at just 3.5 pounds), it&amp;#039;s a cinch to carry around for a full day on the hills.  The Lightest Gore-Tex Boot Yet Inov8 Roclite 390 Boot | $150    England-based Inov8, a company best known for their &amp;quot;fell running&amp;quot; (or hill-heavy trail running) shoes, first came to America four years ago with just a couple shoes. Now they make all sorts of footwear, such as this 13.7-ounce pair that it claims is the world&amp;#039;s lightest Gore-Tex-insulated boot. While it was initially designed for paragliders, the company expects it to take off with light hikers.  A Hydration Pack With Low Center of Gravity Inov8 Race Pro 18 Hydration Pack | $190    Finally, a hydration pack that takes the awkwardness out of the dreaded liquid &amp;quot;swish&amp;quot; as you sprint. This new pack features a 2-liter bladder that&amp;#039;s oriented horizontally around the base of your back, and broken up into a handful of separate cavities that keeps the fluid&amp;#039;s motion to a mininum. Not only does this orientation allow for easy access from the part of the pack that hits your back, but the company claims this position adds lumbar support--it wraps like a liquid cushion around the contours of your back.  A Safer Water Bottle Camelbak Water Bottle | $10-14    While the jury is still out as to whether the BPA (Bisphenol A) used in most plastic water bottles has any real health effects (there is some evidence that high concentrations of the chemical kept at high temperatures for long periods of time may have negative effects on the immune system), CamelBak isn&amp;#039;t taking any chances. The company is phasing out BPA from its reusable plastic bottle line and subbing in a proprietary new plastic they call &amp;quot;Triton.&amp;quot;  The Carbon-Fiber Running Shoe GoLite Carbon Fyre Shoe | $160    A year ago, Timberland-owned GoLite released a trail running shoe loaded with sole-based &amp;quot;pods&amp;quot; that acted like shocks, contouring around rocks and obstacles, allowing you to keep a natural stride without tripping up. I had a chance to test out production models of these shoes a year ago, and I was quite impressed by how they performed on rocky off-road terrain. The Carbon Fyre is the latest pod-filled trail runner, and it adds a carbon-fiber plate to the base for keeping weight down and stiffness and strength up. The shoes also split the midsole into two sections, with the polyurethane at the forefoot and EVA (the foam used in most road running shoes) to the heel.  The Most Lust-Worthy Jacket Ever Arcter&amp;#039;yx Fission SL Jacket | $700    Most winter jackets come with some level of practicality. The fact is, most people only want to spend so much money in order to keep warm. But Arc&amp;#039;teryx had its designers conceive a dream jacket kind of like a concept car--their attempt at packing as much power and performance as they could into a single piece, price be damned. The result is an extremely light, extremely warm and extremely waterproof jacket. But it&amp;#039;s also extremely expensive, because it combines two very expensive materials: Gore-Tex&amp;#039;s Pro Shell on the exterior, and Arc&amp;#039;teryx&amp;#039;s hydrophobic Thermatech inside. An Arcter&amp;#039;yx rep even admitted that they didn&amp;#039;t expect too many people to buy it, but the company just wanted to have such a jacket in their line.  An Easily Swappable Goggle Smith I/O Goggles | $160    Changing lenses on most ski goggles is a hassle, but Smith Optics claims these are the &amp;quot;world&amp;#039;s first intuitively interchangeable goggles.&amp;quot; We don&amp;#039;t know about that, but we do know that they made swapping lenses a cinch. The key is the pair of flip-up levers on top--just turn them and the lens pops right out. Couldn&amp;#039;t be easier.  The Seamless Shoe Teva Aniso Shoe | $100    Jacket-makers have long realized the benefits of a seamless product--subbing in welding for stitching reduces weight, and means fewer holes for water to seep through. Teva&amp;#039;s Aniso (new for this fall) has a welded soft-shell upper that doesn&amp;#039;t have any stitches--meaning it&amp;#039;s made of just one single piece of material--and that means maximum protection from water.  An Easy-to-Open Knife Buck Red Point Knife | $34    This blade features an easily accessible locking switch for one-handed opening and closing. And because the button is extra big, it can even be flipped if you&amp;#039;re wearing oversize gloves--meaning you don&amp;#039;t have to expose your hands to the elements in order to cut rope.  A Shoe With an Exoskeleton The North Face Rucky Chucky Shoe | $110 "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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