Winter OR

Remember a lot of the new gear and clothing I am showing here won't be available at your local retailers until summer (at best usually) or Fall of !

It is a BIG show to cover in a couple of days. This year I got a late start and the driving was pretty bad, so my time was cut to just one full day at the show and a day in the BC at Alta on the snow.
Here were the highlights that interested me. Some of it I have been using for a while and will have a review up soon. Some I have and haven't yet used and some of it I will likely never see :) And a bunch of it I am scrambling toget my hands on asap.




The nasty 800 mile drive was a great comparison of old and new technology, Julbo, Vaurnet and Cebe sun glasses. No flies here. Review coming shortly.









Scarpa! Even at the predicted price point (read expensive) I predict the Rebel Ultra will rock the NA alpine market! These are just nowhitting the warehouse in Colorado. Review coming asap. Going to take a lot to get me out of the Phantom Ultra. My hybrid 6000 did that. But the Rebel Ultra may well keep me out of them year around.





Dang! Edit note: 2/5/13 A reader, Zgemba, noted the new toe on the Rebel Carbon which I had missed!! Actually a new boot called the Rebal Pro GTX. Which is a INSULATED Rebel Carbon with clip on crampon attachments. (Thanks Raf! ) The new sole allows for clip on crampons and it is insulated. Both area huge improvement over the Rebel GTX for the majority of my own use. Nice catch Zgemba and Raf! Damn it! Now I want two new pairs of boots. It never ends!!









Ski Trab, skis and bindings. One of the major players in ski mountaineering which you are about to hear more of.







Scarpa SkiMo race boots....hugely popular. More to come. Gotta wonder how they climb :)





A quick look at the newest Dynafit skis. I'm waiting for my own pair of the bright red Nanga Parbat. Going to be hard to impress me after two seasons on the Broad Peak and another on the Seven Summit. They promise me I will be impressed.









The newest TLT6with no TLT5 in sight!! That hurts! More weight, stiffer boot. Not the direction I would have preferred. So I am stocking up on the TLT5 first.












Dynafit 115g (yes 4oz. total weight) and 160g (5.5oz total weight)race bindings. I have been skiing *everywhere* the last two years on the 115g Low Tech Race and theDynafit Broad Peak skis.





And a damn fine climbing boot it is as well!In my size 45s?

La
Sportiva Batura 2.o. 2#2oz / 970g
La
Sportiva Trango Evo Extreme GTX 2#3oz (35oz) / 992g

Scarpa
Phantom Ultra new model 2#3.5oz (35.5oz) / 1006g

Scarpa
Phantom Guide new model 2#7.5oz / 1120g

La
Sportiva Batura 2nd gen. 2#9oz / 1170g

La
Sportiva Nepal Evo 2#10.5oz / 1205g



The
DyNA PDGis 870g per boot in a 29 shell or 1.9 POUNDS....1 # 14oz or 30oz!
Dropping a full 10oz per pair off my size 45 from the lightest FABRIC ice
climbing boot!



More on ski packs from Camp and Dynafit coming







Outdoor Research just floored me with all the great alpine and ice gloves they are no making today. OR has always been good. Now? Simply stunning with such a broad collection of speciality gloves. Look for a full review of every model I think is exceptional from OR...and there are a lot of them! Bravo OR!







La Sportiva's new SkiMo race boot! You'll have to stand in line to get these. Short line but it is STEEP buy in! Yes, sick as it is I want some!





And La Sportiva's SkiMo boot for the normal folks.




This one from Petzl made me crazy. A bolt on "Dart" reinvented. Now we just need a clip on model...Please!! Oh, PLEASE Santa!!! Lynx meets Dart...finally! Wel almost anyway. My bet is they are floating around Chamonix already. Anyone care to hold that bet for me?



One, if not THE, coolest thing at the show...Petzl's new hand sharpener for ice screws. This thing really rocks. You'll never have to send me (or anyone else) your screws again



Petzls newest ice screws, now with a crank, new teeth and a aluminum version that should again...rock the alpine world! Hopefully more on these two coming up.



Petzl harnesses always deserve a second look.



The one item I saw that really opened up my imagination this show. Always a surprise what that "ONE" piece of gear might be. Last summer it was the new Scarpa Rebel Ultra. This show surprisingly it was the new Arcane Hoody from the Canada's Westcomb. Sewn at home. A stretch Shoeller super light weight soft shell, fully water proof and breathable with taped seams and 180g of Primaloft. This thing is going to make the Duelly obsolete. And almost half the retail price! It is NUMBER ONEon my hit list right now.








Speaking of the Duelly...the Solo (one layer of insulation) now has a hood and is back with the Duelly (two layers of insulation) and some small fit changes! Awesome climbing jackets. And a bunch of new down from Arcteryx as well.













La Sportivas new 4 buckle full on combat AT boots. .the lightest weight boot in that category we were told

Geneve at Night: Dinner at Le Lacustre

My first night in Geneve was quite uneventful except for the news that I received at the hotel reception: THEY FOUND MY BAG. I was ecstatic because I dreaded wearing the same clothes the next day. I already bought a few stuff at the nearby Coop store which I really regretted because it cost me a lot of money. Switzerland is not cheap. I do not like unnecessary spending.

Anyway, I was so tired. My body has taken its toll from waking up at 3AM that morning, the nightmares at the airport, the long sessions I had during the day—all I really wanted was to lay on my bed and sleep early. Had dinner at the hotel and went straight to bed. Boring? Heh.

So on the second evening I was a bit adventurous and joined a group of colleagues for dinner at Le Lacustre Restaurant in Geneve town center.

For dinner I had Risotto ai Frutti di Mari, 4 stars out of 5. The wines here though are 5 stars, superb! Service as well is very good, the waiters are nice, attentive and accommodating.


Le Lacustre Restaurant by day.

The Italian restaurant is located right on the banks of Lac Leman (Lake Geneva) which is near Place du Molard (just right across), a famous square in Geneva. The terrace is connected to the promenade that is jutting out of the lake. It’s one of the beautiful and perfectly located restaurants in town; on the lake and with a lovely outdoor terrace.

This restaurant also serves sexy wines so for this reason we stayed longer after dinner. The group, as part of the natural process of socialising, decided to move outside to the terrace to further chill out and enjoy the sexy wine. It was a nice evening; dry, not too cold, just fresh. A lovely night full of conversations and laughs.

After saying goodbyes we took the tram going back to our hotel, however, we picked the wrong one. Happens all the time. And the last tram to the direction of our hotel happened to just passed by. The guys blamed me because I was the one chasing the tram. Oh well, the cab it is! Its on my bill.

On the promenade outside Le Lacustre Restaurant with the swans on the lake. Companies must be paying a lot of money to advertise their logo on top of the buildings on the lake. I see the ABN-Amro logo.

Place du Molard at night. I love the lights on the cobble stones.

Cabs are as expensive as in the Netherlands.

Exploring by Sea

We all went on the boat today. I think it's the first that we've all been out there at the same time. Lauren's friend, Sarah, joined us too. I saw some new areas which made it really interesting. This is what we saw while driving around on the water:

The swing bridge at Gwynn's Island. I've read that there are not many of these bridges left in the US. We just so happened to come across it as it was moving. What a neat thing to see the entire middle section rotate so boats can pass by.

We had so much fun soaking up the local sights and nature this way!

Death Valley National Park

After six days at Joshua Tree, I traveled north to Death Valley National Park, arriving there on Tuesday March 23rd.

When I arrived at Texas Springs Campground (sort of in the central portion of the park near Furnace Creek) it was almost full. It's one of those first-come, first-served self-check-in campgrounds, so you have to drive around and find an empty spot. It took a while but I pulled into what I thought was an open site at the same time as someone else pulled in to the one next to me. We looked at each other and said, “Hi neighbor!” But a few minutes later they pulled out and went to another spot. As I was standing there looking around, a little old lady (the 80-year old camp host) came up and told me I was in a handicap only site, so I had to move. She said there were only three empty sites left and told me where they were.

As I pulled into my next selected site, I saw that my new neighbors were actually the young couple that had pulled in beside me earlier. We looked at each other and laughed. They had gotten the last site that had a picnic table and fire ring. My site had nothing. But it was better than no site at all. Being nice neighbors, the young couple (Ian and Jennifer) invited me to join them at their table and campfire. They were very sweet and pleasant. We had a wonderful time sitting around the campfire in the evening and talking the night away, literally.

We were neighbors for Wednesday night also and once again they were gracious and companionable and we spent another evening talking around the campfire. By the time the night was over, we each knew quite a bit about the other. I spent two more nights at Texas Springs. On Friday night, Ian and Jennifer joined me at my camp site after spending Thursday in the back-country. (I had moved to a new site Thursday morning with a table and fire ring.) Thank you, Ian and Jennifer, for helping to make my evenings in Death Valley so enjoyable. It was great fun!

Death Valley from Dante's View, 5500 feet above the valley.

The Golden Mountains. Those two little vertical “lines” in the middle of the picture are people!

This is an area known as the Artist's Palette.

At Zabriskie Point.

Zabriskie Point.

The Devil's Golf Course. Telescope Peak, in the background, is the highest peak (over 11,000 feet) in the Panamint Range that borders Death Valley on the west.

Close up view of the Devil's Golf Course. In 1934, it was determined that the salt and gravel beds of the Devil's Golf Course extend to a depth of more than 1,000 feet. Later studies suggest that in places the depth ranges up to 9,000 feet.

The salt flats at Badwater, which is the lowest point in Death Valley at 232 feet below sea level. Walking on the salt flats was strange. It looked like concrete but there was some “give” in each step. In several spots there were muddy pools of water where small holes had been made in the salt flat.