Category Archives: Winter Readiness

Winter Readiness: Thule Repair

Among the casualties of last year’s epic ski season was my Thule Mountaineer: a fifteen year old ski bin which I picked up last fall, second hand for $150 bucks, sight unseen with help some help from my friend Rob and the TGR Gear Swap Forum. The thing had been in some guy’s garage for God knows how long, but it had clearly seen some action. The hardware had seen better days; I immediately replaced the mounting bolts with new ones borrowed from my kayak carriers. The whole thing mostly held up for the duration of the winter, but towards the end of season some fractures in the shell began to develop in a few isolated spots. Hoping to get some extra longevity out of my investment, I endeavored to repair things before it worsened.

The patient: some severe cracking to the left and below the latch. Possibly
a stress point?

The second region of concern: less complex pattern, but larger and
precariously closer to an edge.

The same crack as above shown from the inside of the box.

The proposed plan: drill out the intersections and endpoints of all of the fractures to prevent them from propagating any further and and then attempt to repair the material using some kind of plastic cement. My Dad dug around the basement and eventually came up with something which claimed to cause localized melting and subsequent re-bonding of many typical plastics. I figured I’d give it a shot.

A power drill and the smallest bit which will span the largest of the cracks…

Rear fracture: drilled out endpoints and intersections.

Side fracture.

Side fracture after applying the cement to the outside.

Side fracture with cement applied to the inside.

Rear fracture with cement applied to the inside.

Rear fracture after cement from the outside.

Side fracture after a few ski and hiking trips.

Repaired rear fracture.

Repaired rear fracture from the inside.

So far, so good. I’ve loaded it up pretty heavily and gone for a few long road trips and it’s still in one piece. I have to imagine it’s not as strong as it originally was, so I hesitant to claim that it’s permanently fixed, but for now I think it’ll get the job done. If this plastic cement eventually fails, I may try using some kind of fiber glass.

Gear List (click links for more product info):

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):

Winter Readiness: Shakedown Cruise

With winter fast approaching, Ziehl and I figured it was about time for a pre-ski season shakedown cruise on Franconia Ridge. In light of our lofty backcountry skiing ambitions, we felt compelled to benchmark our conditioning on familiar grounds. I also was interested to see how my new shell pants and jacket would perform in alpine conditions. And, with little else to do besides take in the view one step at a time, mountains make the ideal place to get fired up for the upcoming ski season by endlessly speculating as to the snow conditions of various aspects, potential challenges on the approach, estimated ratio of fun to effort…you get the idea. Any way, here’s the map:

View Franconia Ridge November 2011 in a larger map

The forecast was for a high in the mid 40s, mostly sunny, and light breeze. When we rolled into the parking lot at 9:30, it was mostly cloudy and very windy. We threw on our shell jackets, packed our bags and hit the trail eagerly.

A few weeks ago we switched our work out from mostly simple lifts like flat bench and squats to a more dynamic workout with things like split leg squats and kettle swings and also to work more sprints and stairs. Our thought was that we’d get as strong as possible and then right before ski season we’d cut over to a high intensity workout to build endurance hopefully without loosing much strength.

We informally agreed to ‘just go as fast as possible’ on the way up Little Haystack to gauge whether or not our ski season conditioning scheme was coming together and if not, how much work might be remaining between now and Christmas. After a while of hiking, we stopped to take off our shell jackets and take a drink. After maybe another hour, we stopped for a breather-snack combo. We were slowed down by about a half mile of hard-pack and water ice. Shortly thereafter we broke treeline and hit the summit of Haystack at 11:30 AM. We speculated that the only adjustment to our conditioning scheme should be to go forward full steam ahead – it seemed to be paying off. We threw our jackets back on, had a Cliff bar and went after Lincoln.

Ziehl near the Haystack treeline.

Me at the summit of Little Haystack.
Photo Credit: Ziehl

We spent most of the walk from Haystack to Lincoln discussing our plans to try and ski every single chute slide and gully on either side of the ridge. Between the newly wintery conditions found above treeline, the outstanding offering of ski films this year, and encouraged by our sturdy pace, we could hardly contain our excitement for the ski season.

Ziehl, and the road ahead.

The ridge, and it’s numerous exciting-looking descents.
Photo Credit: Ziehl

Mt. Washington and the Presidentials. The Bonds are in the foreground.

Before we knew it, we’d cruised over Lincoln and made it to Lafayette. According to the tracklogs we summit-ted in just under 3 hours (including packing at the car). Mission success! We quickly scoped out the old hotel foundation at the summit (a potential ski-touring camp) and made our way down from the ridge toward Greenleaf.

On our way down from Lafayette.

Facing south on our way to Greenleaf.

As we made the dogleg toward the south back to the parking area we got plenty of great views of the Southern Whites, and the Ridge we’d just come down from. I think that one of the hallmarks of this hike are the opportunities to look back at the terrain you’ve just traveled from a new perspective.

Southern White Mountains.

Rays of light from Greenleaf.

Ziehl with Franconia Ridge in the background.

Nearly sunset.

Left gully: I have no clue; Right gully: Lincolns’ throat. If anyone knows
the name of the lines in the left gully, please comment!

More sunset.

Detail of Lincoln’s Throat. Gnarly.

In just under 5 hours we arrived back at the car. We changed and went straight for the Tilton Diner for a post hike feast.

Gear List (click links for more product info):

Winter Readiness: Black Diamond Factor AT Sole Block Install

In the spirit of the recent post regarding testing my winter load-out, I decided to document my various winter preparation activities just in case any of this eclectic trivia or minutia should be of use to anyone else out there. (And judging by the searches by which people seem to arrive at this site, at least some of this might be useful information…) So, here’s the first topic in the Winter Readiness series: How to install a set of AT Sole Blocks on the Black Diamond Factor boot.

First, let’s have a quick look at all of the moving parts:

Exploded: Boots, blocks, hardware, liners.

Close up: the alpine blocks to the left, the AT blocks to the right and
the included hardware in the center.

I’ll assume most people will have purchased the boots with the Alpine block pre-installed (at least that’s what happened in my case). In any event, the process of removing and replacing the either set of blocks is identical.

The first step in removing the sole blocks is to unbuckle everything, remove the liner, yank out the boot board, and flip them into walk mode, just for some extra wiggle room.

Das Boot.

Unbuckle and unstrap.

Remove liners and boot boards.

Flip into walk mode.

The next item on the agenda is to remove the alpine blocks by unscrewing them and prying them off of the boot. Let’s first take a closer look at the hardware involved.

Button heads with #2 Philips fittings and flat heads with Allen wrench
fittings.

Number 2 Philips driver, included Allen
wrench, a hammer, the screws.

To remove the toe pieces unscrew the two machined flat heads near the toe welts using the included Allen wrench. Pry upward on the toe welt of the sole block. With enough force it will pop loose, allowing you to pull the toe block backward and completely clear of the molded plastic fittings.

Unscrew with Allen wrench.

Pull upward on the toe welt.

With the toe loosened, pull back on the entire block until it breaks free of
the molded plastic fittings shown below.

One down, four to go!

Next step: remove the heel piece. This requires that you locate the two #2 Philips head screws under the boot-board and back them out. Once this is accomplished, you can bang the block off of the boot with a few carefully placed hammer swings.

Back out the two heel piece screws.

Hammer the heel piece off. Fairly careful aim is required to have any effect:
you want to be sure to strike only the heel piece or else the sole of the boot
will absorb the force rather than the heel block.

Enlarge to see the heel block has slid off of it’s molded fittings on the boot.
It can simply be pulled off now.

While you’re at it, you should probably repeat this process on the other boot. Now to put the AT blocks on. Let’s have a close look at those:

A careful inspection of the sole blocks reveals that each is labeled with a
capital R or L

We’ll start with the toes. Be sure to grab the correct block. Fit the rear portion of the toe block over the plastic moldings just forward of the middle of the boot – they should hook on. Once the rear of the toe block is firmly hooked on, press down on the toe block over the toe welt until it snaps into place. Finally, the toe piece can be locked down using the two flat head screws fitted for the Allen wrench.

Place the heel block over the plastic moldings and press forward until the
toe piece is firmly seated.

Press down over the toe welt until the toe block snaps into place.

Lock it down using the two flat head screws with the Allen wrench.

Next step: the heel block. Grab the appropriate heel block and slide it forward ensuring first that the forward grooves are seated correctly, and second that the rearward grooves follow into place. You should see any gaps between the heel piece and the boot if this has been done correctly. You may need to persuade the heel piece into position with a few hammer swings. Once it’s in place, you can drop the two Philips head screws into place from the top of the boot and crank them down using a #2 screw driver.

Slide the heel block over the molded grooves near the boot center, and then
be sure that the rear grooves have followed into place.

You need to exert a bit of downward pressure to keep the grooves lined up.

Finally bang things into place with a few hammer strikes.

Replace the two Philips head screws and tighten them.

Repeat this process on the second boot. Replace the boot boards, the liners and buckle things up again (boots keep their form best with all buckles and straps secured during storage).

Done!

And with one less Winter Readiness chore checked off my list, I think I’ll kick back with some light Sunday afternoon reading…

Should be a good winter!

Gear List (click links for more product info):