Category Archives: Gear

Winter Prep: Bring on the snow!

The ski box is on the car, the temps are finally getting low–all we need is a few good storms are we can officially say ski season has arrived. I got some turns in last Sunday with Sweeney and Rob up at Sunday River, but there’s still not much snow even that far north. The day held a few good bump runs for us with all the snow they were blowing. I felt pretty coordinated on the slopes for a first day, but my form was a bit sloppy after the 7 month break.

Recently I’ve been preparing to do some AT skiing this year in the backcountry. Last night Rob helped me get the new addition to my quiver set-up. I nabbed a pair of Atomic Heli-Daddys on the cheap, used but still in good shape. They have a bit of camber, but seem like they’ll be good in the woods, even though at 180 they’re a bit longer than what I usually ski.

We mounted Fritschi Freeride Plus’s on them, which look pretty solid. This is my first AT binding so I was trying to balance utility with cost. I was assured they were pretty bombproof, and lighter than Dukes. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to put them through the paces in some serious powder this season. I have been told that I’ll have Dynafit envy soon enough though. Some lighter boots would probably be a smart idea too….one thing at a time.

I plan to get some mileage on this setup over the holidays. Rob mentioned putting an early rise on the skis for better float and to decrease the camber. I want to test them out first but I’ll put up summary of the project if that seems like the way to go.

With the new gear comes the need to do some reading on backcountry safety and I see an avalanche course in my future. But first I still need all the associated accessories. I just need skins, a beacon, a probe, a shovel, ….a winter pack… There’s always a seemingly endless gear list for outdoor hobbies, however in this case the first few things really are essential, and I won’t be able really make use of my new skis without them.

Now, pray for snow!

Winter Readiness: Winterized Zipper Pulls!

On the surface, this post is almost silly. But I assure you, the only thing silly about it, is that the industry hasn’t gotten their act together and done this themselves. Alas, the industry is frequently swayed toward form before function. Anyhow…

…If you’re wearing your ski jacket, then you’re probably wearing your gloves and you probably have all you can do to access all of the zippered compartments of your jacket or day pack with your maimed manual dexterity. They give you about an inch of string or fabric to clutch onto with a finger with is like two and half inches thick. OK, I exaggerate slightly, but you get the idea.

There is a simple solution to this. Grab you’re favorite ski jacket, buy a few feet of p-cord from your local mountain shop and tie longer zipper pulls onto each of the zippers. If you plan to be outside for more than a few hours at a time, you’ll thank yourself that you have arranged your gear in such a way that you never have to remove your gloves.

Cut about 8 inches of p-cord off and loop it through the metal zipper tab.

Tie the biggest burliest knot you can so that you’re gloves or mittens have
more surface to grasp onto.

I’ve used an 8-knot because it’s easily tied, neat, and bulky. They tend not
to pull out too often either.

As a backup measure and to add extra surface area, I tied a second 8-knot
with the slack ends of the p-cord.

After you’ve cut the p-cord, you can fuse the frayed ends with a lighter to
prevent them from raveling.

Check ’em out in action. This can be done with back packs, and tents too.

These like the burliest gloves ever. And the pit zips are hard enough to get
to with no gloves at all…

And that’s it. Go play outdoors all day without getting cold fingers!

Gear List (click links for more product info):

Miscellaneous Interlude – Biking, Running, and Eating

No photos to see here, I just wanted to take a moment to talk about a few other things I’ve been up to recently.

First off, bikes. I have a small sample size that says biking is kind of addicting. Originally I bought a bike off my friend Dwight to commute to work, and replace a old mountain bike of mine that got stolen. One day I got fed up with being crammed on the Orange line, and started biking the 4 miles instead. This was the first step down a road to a new, expensive hobby. Soon I was biking everywhere, mainly utilitarian. These days I bike generally at least 6 miles day.

It wasn’t until a warm late summer day though, that I really got hooked. Everyone was too busy to go climbing, and I really needed to stretch my legs–so I grabbed my bike (a Trek hybrid, by the way) and rode around the Charles, to Newton, the Science Museum, and back. My bike isn’t really built for speed, having nice fat hybrid tires, and straight handlebars, but it’s solid as a rock, which is great. Up until that day, I felt like I would only really use my bike to get me where I needed to go. But I got sucked in. Now a bike ride sounds like a it could be a real adventure.

And Sweeney, who at first was apprehensive about getting into yet another hobby after just starting to rock climb, confided to me that he got hooked on biking after 1 ride last Thursday. I guess there’s no escaping it.

A Scenic tour of Mission Hill

Also worth a minor note, was running the Mission hill 5k road race 2 weeks ago. It seemed like the thing to do, and though I don’t consider myself a runner, it was fun to compete and do the run with some friends. Since I’ve only run maybe 2 other times in the past two months, I set myself some nice attainable goals– 1) Don’t stop jogging, and 2) Beat 30 minutes. Given that it was pretty hilly, since it is Mission Hill after all, I was satisfied with achieving both of those.

Next time I’ll make sure I get a little more speed in my gait so I can be faster. I’ve never run a 5k before, so I was kind of in the Tough Mudder mindset–keep a nice steady pace so that you can tough it out for the long run. Training a bit might help too, but I don’t like running in the city too much, so I usually just do hill sprints if at all.

New adventures in food consumption

Also, just over a month ago now, I realized I was spending a tad too much on eating out–mainly just buying burritos every chance I got and bringing them home. I decided a drastic change in my eating habits might be a good way to get more convicted to buying groceries. With this notion in mind, I decided to start eating a “slow-carb” diet, a version of which Tim Ferris describes in his book The Four Hour Body.

First of all, let me inform you that I have no intention of losing weight. In fact, at my current morning weight of ~168, I plan to gain another 5-10 pounds. I wanted to try the slow carb diet mainly for its simplicity. Basically I eat as much scrambled eggs, meat, fish, veggies, and beans as I want. I also have been drinking a fair amount of 2% milk, since it’s a good way to get extra calories to gain weight. This keeps my shopping list fairly short–if I can’t walk out of the grocery store carrying everything for a week in one hand in a basket (one very full basket), I probably have done something wrong.

One day a week (Saturday), I get to eat anything I want (carbs). Basically I see who wants to hit burger joints, and I attempt to eat ridiculous amounts of pastries for breakfast, and devour entire pizzas. This is great, since I’d say overall I eat healthier, and I can only eat so much junk food in one day. A stipulation I should make here is that when I’m active for most of the day, hiking, for example, I generally eat more carb heavy since I feel like I need to replenish what my body is using.

Results and thoughts? I’ve had a few realizations in the past month. I’ve definitely leaned down a bit, which is great. Eating to the diet isn’t very difficult mid-week, though I tend to have a few Bolocco bowls throughout the week. Salsa and hot sauce make everything tasty, something I didn’t think to take seriously until 2 weeks in.

Another thing is I am fairly active, so if I eat a few meals that are a bit too small, I end up hungry and losing some weight, which is no good. In a given week, I workout for 3 hours doing barbell routines, ride 6 miles daily, and often spend at least 1 or 2 of the remaining days of the week doing something active like climbing or hiking, if I don’t have other plans. After a few weeks I noticed I was losing a bit of weight, so I just started drinking more milk, and sometimes having a protein shake after the gym. Ferris’ diet plan makes various allowances for this sort of thing.

Three weeks in, the day after my “cheat day” I had some leftover pop-tarts, and had a really strong urge to stop eating slow carb. I was out of food and knew it would be easier just to buy something rather than come back to cook up lunch. Don’t leave leftover sugary food. The thing is, I realized I was wussing out. It really isn’t hard for me to eat slow carb, I usually cook the same type of meals most weeks, slow carb or otherwise. The simplicity and diet of slow carb is just a motivation to cook. The snacks will be there next Saturday, and I’ll be sick of them by the end of that day, again.

Winter Readiness: Winter Expedition Loadout

With winter fast approaching (October is next week, November = ski season!!!), I’ve been stocking up on various new gear items and thought it was about time to see that they all actually work together.

In particular, I recently wangled a GoPro, chest harness, and spare mount kit at a stupendous discount. I kinda don’t want to mount it to my ski helmet for a few reasons: it’s completely outlandish looking, and I hear it tends to pop off if you wreck really hard. So, I decided to spring for the chest mount. My major concern with this decision was whether it would actually fit reasonably well with all the rest of the stuff I expect to be wearing if I’m actually skiing some place worthy of the GoPro. Despite the stifling, disheartening, and entirely unseasonable temperatures in Boston lately, I got decked out in just about every piece of technical gear I own to see whether or not this is even feasible.

If I’m really out in the sticks, the avy beacon is a must have. So that went on first. One can imagine the gnarliest backcountry skiing trips, involving various bits of mixed climbing or traveling over glaciated terrain (for what it’s worth I’m no where near this stage of competence, but one can imagine such a scenario), so I jumped into my climbing harness. Next, I threw on my shell jacket for purposes of realism. On top of the jacket goes the Avalung II; after all we’re talking about slaying epic backcountry lines here, not cruising around on inbounds groomers… Now for the centerpiece: the GoPro with the Chesty. This works considerably better than one might imagine. The Avalung is actually kind of flat in the center, providing a level vertical surface on which the chest harness can rest. And finally, for good measure, I put on my winter day pack. In some small miracle, none of the straps seriously interfere with each other. Mission accomplished! As an added perk (an operational necessity, in fact), I discovered that the climbing harness and beacon are both still entirely accessible without removing anything, but by unzipping the bottom zip on my shell jacket. Ready for action!

Decked out. The big bulge in my midsection is the beacon.

The beacon and climbing harness hardpoints are available by
unzipping the bottom zip and unbuckling the hip belt.

Gear List (click links for more product info):