Trivia:
Inclinometers are used in aircraft to show magnetic dip or the angle from the horizon.
Clinometers are used by surveyors in order to measure an angle of inclination or elevation.
Goniometers are instruments that either measures angle or allows an object to be rotated to a precise angular position.
Regardless of what you use or what you call it, being able to measure slope angles is one of the best avalanche defenses available. I’ve been skiing around for the last week in considerable, high and even extreme avalanche conditions without seeing or triggering any slides as I’ve been keeping my angles loooooow. Like in the 20-30 degree range at the most.
For years my goniometer (I usually call it an inclinometer) of choice has been the classic Life-Link plastic card with a dingle-bob on it. After a few seasons, the plastic breaks and you are left with a shard of plastic and a stuck dingle-bob. Still, they were kind of cheap, lightweight and compact enough that you could whip it out, pull an angle and get on with life. With this in mind, I was overjoyed at the recent Outdoor Retail Show to see that Pieps had come out with a bitchin’ new digital unit that mounts to your pole and also includes a thermometer. Continue reading ‘Pulling Slope Angles’
I love the idea of regluing skins, not just because it is all eco earth friendly and vegan approved, but because a pair of moderately worn nylon skins have such a nice feel to them – they glide, climb and fold-up like butter. With this in mind, I stripped the old glue off of a pair of skins last year and carefully documented my first outing with Black Diamond Glue Renew strips in eager anticipation of a KILLER BLOG POSTING. Yeah, well, it turned out like crap as I have the patience of a two year old and once again forgot to read the instructions until after I finished the job. Continue reading ‘Glue Renew Guru’
It’s about time the Wasatch got some snow, dammit. It was a mixed blessing to open my garage door this morning and find that the overnight snowfall was thigh deep and over the top of my snow-thrower hood, which necessitated a double pass, which in turn made me late, which led to getting stuck in the Cottonwood Canyons traffuck, and once we finally got to the trailhead almost an hour later, I pulled my beacon out to find that it had been left on and was reading “00″ as a power level (details below). It wasn’t a great start to the day, but it soon improved, as photo Exhibit A shows below: Continue reading ‘Deep Snow and Shallow Batteries’
A few holiday gift ideas from a guy who has been described as “impossible to buy anything for.” Continue reading ‘Holiday Gift Ideas for Dirtbag Skiers’
When I was into Alpine Racing, one sign of how serious you were about the sport was if you went to the trouble and expense of getting custom made orthopedic footbeds. The idea was that you wanted your foot perfectly supported, but more importantly, totally flat so you weren’t inadvertently riding an edge. We were all convinced that our feet were freaks of nature, but I’ve come to realize that I have pretty normal feet and that everyone thinks his/her feet are weird. Continue reading ‘Insoles’
I tend to get excited about small things and in that regard, I’m downright giddy about the #512 Expedition Journal from Rite in the Rain (RITR). I’ve always been a list, sketchbook and notebook kind of guy and really came out of the closet when I saw that some of the best expedition leaders I’d ever met carried RITR notebooks and kept meticulous notes. Putting together a trip is a lot like starting a small business with an expected three month life span. You need to organize people, keep track of money, follow conditions, take notes, work with other agencies, have a plan of attack, stick to a schedule, have a backup plan, and then be able to review your records months or years later. The #512 is perfectly suited for all of this, plus you can write it all down in the rain, or even underwater. Continue reading ‘512 Expedition Journal’
Oh-lala! A squeeky fresh copy of “The Black Book – Select Lines from Grand Teton National Park” by Conor Miller showed up yesterday and I haven’t been this excited about a ski book for a long time. I saw an early draft at the last OR Show, and although it was about 180 degrees outside, it made me want to immediately pack up my skis and head up to the Tetons.
Three little skiers climbing up the Hourglass Couloir on Nez Perce.
Continue reading ‘The Black Book’
A last update from the OR Show…
I’ve been collecting knives for a while because I like how they often embody the cultures who created them. Swiss Army knives are tight, compact and high quality, just like Switzerland. American Buck knives are big, simple and durable – a bit like America. Italian switchblades are flashy and sexy… when they work. The classic No. 10 Opinel knife from France is beautifully functional and dangerous. I’m stereotyping and digressing, but within my knife collection I have a bunch of multi-tools as well. I’ve always been loyal to the Leatherman brand, in part because I once saw Mr. Leatherman speak, and he was explaining how he started the company out of his frustration of having to carry a whole tool kit with him when traveling in Europe so he could fix the plumbing in hotel rooms. It would never, ever, occur to me to try to fix the plumbing in a hotel room, but I admire his obsessive nature and the fact that he created an entire industry out of it.
I own the original Leatherman, a Micro (nice, but a hassle with TSA types) and a Juice. I recently ordered a Skeletool based on pure sex appeal alone as they are little works of art. But, as soon as I got it, the bottle opener and wire-gate clip gave me some buyer’s remorse as they kind of cluttered up an otherwise elegant design. I was ready to just suck it up, but Leatherman came out with the brand new Freestyle model, which is a streamlined Skeletool sans bottle opener, and perhaps unfortunately, the screwdriver. These are very nice little units as the knife blade can be opened with one hand and the needle-nose pliers are surgically precise. In general, both the Skeletool and Freestyle are much smaller than they appear in photos. For reference, I can almost hide an entire Skeletool in my closed hand. Still, I like’m a lot.
The Skeletool with the bottle opener.
The Freestyle tool - basically a Skeletool, sans bottle opener.
Continue reading ‘OR Show – Cool Stuff’
