Brooks-Range Sharktooth Mini-Pro Avalanche Shovel
December 16, 2008
Whoa, is that a long product name. I have to apologize to Brooks-Range for taking so long to review this shovel, but I really did want to do my duty and test it first and we didn’t have any snow, and then my ski boots were broken so I didn’t go skiing at all, and excuse excuse excuse. But this weekend I finally took this shovel on a long avalanche training weekend, so here it is!
The Sharktooth is named for the serrated teeth on the metal blade, meant to help carve up that mean, nasty avalanche debris. And it works! Those teeth mean business. I dig a lot of training holes in the winter and having an extra edge in the form of serrated teeth really makes the whole process a lot easier. This is an aggressive shovel for difficult digging conditions. The shovel also has an expandable handle which is probably the longest handle you’ll see on an avalanche field shovel. The handle extends to regular shovel length! This makes it a little harder to fit into your pack, but it’s a trade off. It’s sure nice to have a long handle when you’re doing a lot of digging. The handle can also be used in conjunction with other Brooks-Range products such as the Rescue Sled/Tarp, which you’ll see in an upcoming review.
I tested the “mini” version of the shovel which has a 13 inch blade, but there is a regular version with a 15-inch blade. The shovel blades are etched with avalanche rescue instructions, which is cool but also scary because really, are there people out there who need their shovel to tell them what to do for companion rescue? Yikes. I guess since there probably really are those people out there, I need to remind everyone once again that this shovel has TEETH and they are SHARP. I’m an avalanche dog handler and I was a little concerned about using the shovel around my dog, because those shovel teeth can do some damage. This should also be noted during companion rescue. The teeth will help you get through the debris faster but you could also conceivably carve up your friend, so be careful. The shovel comes with a teeth-guard to protect your pack when you stow the shovel. I lost the guard this weekend but it’s really just a piece of tubing sliced lengthwise, so it’s easy to replace.
This shovel is a Geargals favorite because it comes in PINK and also can be personalized with your name on the blade. The avalanche technician I was with really thought the instructions for rescue were cool, so maybe I’m being unnecessarily snarky about it. I admit they provide good review and could be helpful to inexperienced rescuers having a moment of panic after an avalanche gobbled up their friend. So, probably a good idea to have the info on there. And if you’ve ever dug in actual avalanche debris, you can appreciate how much the sharp teeth on this thing can help. Smart backcountry travelers always have their trusty shovel, and smart, stylish Geargals now have their trusty pink personalized shovels for the backcountry!
Kahtoola Microspikes Traction System
December 11, 2008
A great holiday gift. I know my mom loved them, and I don’t have to put ice melt on the driveway when she comes to visit anymore. $53.08 at Backcountry.com.
So, one thing I’ve learned about gear is that everyone needs a lot of it. And the reason you need a lot of it is that it’s all about the “in-betweens”. You might have a great jacket for climbing Denali, but when you’re at sea level and it’s merely “a bit chilly” and not “80 degrees below zero” you need something to wear that isn’t too Ed Viesturs-ish but is still warmer than a T-shirt. See – the “in-betweens” need to be covered.
And the same is true with non-slip footwear accessories. On Denali, you need crampons. On your driveway in summer, you need flip-flops. But sometimes you need something “in-between.” And for all those various snow-ice-slippery-surface combinations, you need all different types of grippy things for your footwear. For those days where little rubber things covered in metal spirals, or little thumbtacks turned upside down and glued onto your shoes just won’t do it, you need the Kahtoola Microspikes.
Many styles of ice grippers rely on stretchy rubber to hold them onto boots and shoes, and most of the time these work fine as long as the wearer is on perfectly level and bare ice. Loose snow tends to peel them off and leave them, cold and alone, lost forever. Can you tell I’ve been watching angsty emo television? Anyway, Kahtoola obviously can’t bear the thought of its Microspike ice grippers entombed in an icy living death (for pete’s sake, where is this stuff coming from???) because they’ve addressed that issue with a better design for the, er, rubbery part that holds the grippers on the boots. The grippers themselves are almost a kind of mini-crampon – no cute little thumbtacks here. These are SPIKES, folks. As in, do not forget to take these off before you get into your car.
And they are effective spikes. They stay on, even in loose snow, and for me that is important because there is nothing more slippery than ice covered in loose snow. I mean, that is just DEADLY. They pack into a pretty conveniently small jumble, and as long as you’ve got them in a tough-ish case, you can carry them in your pack as a light alternative to crampons. I, for one, will be carrying them in my winter-gear duffel in my car, because they are just the kind of thing that I might someday need really badly. Far superior to common ice-grippers, the Kahtoolas are the way to go.
Dakine Poacher Pack
December 8, 2008
Get the Poacher ON SALE for $116.96 at Backcountry.com! Click here!
So, it’s no secret that Dakine makes great packs. Dakine packs are consistently the most well thought-out winter/ski packs available, and their Poacher is no exception. It’s my favorite pack design for search and rescue and other technical pursuits because of the tons and tons of pockets, multiple access options, and reasonable yet ample size. My absolute favorite feature is the rear-access panel, which is only one of many ways I can access my gear in this pack. Gear access is the most important issue for SAR professionals, or at least it’s the most important issue for me. I like to be able to reach all of my stuff without moving all of my other stuff. The Poacher has top access, back access, front access, and side access. It’s as if they knew about my access thing and made the pack just to address that issue. “FINE, HG, here is your stupid access pack. Happy?” Yes, I am, thank you! This pack is organized well, carries well and has almost every feature one could reasonably think of. I love the camera pocket and the multiple compartments in the lid. I also like having a sleeve for my shovel handle. If I was a hydration bladder kind of person I’d love the anti-freeze hydration tube insulation as well. Generally the pack is awesome. But I can’t quite give it a patented Geargals rave, because it’s so obvious that this pack is made for dudes. The harness is just plain huge and the back panel is pretty long too. When I’m wearing it, I’m usually inwardly bemoaning the fact that it doesn’t fit me.
Now, I know from reviewing the Dakine Heli-Pro Girls Backpack that Dakine can make a pack that fits women perfectly. They’ve got the design and the sizing right – so where is the Poacher (and its big brother the Guide Pack) for women? OK, fine, so the taller ladies might be able to fit the Poacher all right. I do know some lady ski patrollers who swear by this pack, and I can see why. But it sure would be great if we could have a pack the same size, with the same features, but with a harness sized to fit a female user. That would pretty much be my dream SAR pack. So how about it, Dakine? A Lady Poacher? A Girls Guide Pack? I swear I would actually put down my own money (and for a gear tester, that is a big deal) for a Poacher or Guide pack with Geargal proportions in mind. If this pack fits you, you’re in luck, but if you’re smaller, help me put pressure on Dakine to add the Girls Poacher to the lineup!
Yakima SkyBox Gear Hauler
November 30, 2008
You know the feeling – you get some gear here, some gear there, some more gear, some gear that was on sale, some gear that you got from your buddy who switched to telemarking – and suddenly the gear situation is at critical mass. You want to go on an adventure but your car won’t carry all the gear for all the adventures you want to have. There is just not enough room. The doors won’t shut and there is no room for actual people in the car anyway. What is a Geargal to do?
And that is where the SkyBox comes in. If you are lucky enough to live in an outdoorsy type of town, you have probably seen eight million of these things, on all types of cars, from Subarus to Expeditions (seriously. If you own an Expedition and still need a cargo box, you have a problem). And for good reason – the SkyBox is seriously handy for hauling skis, shovels, snow saws, luggage, backpacks, tools – anything you might need for a trip or two or five. I love the SkyBox because I can throw all the sharp, dirty, poky things in it instead of having to stuff them into my nice new car. And my dog loves it too, because he gets to ride in comfort in the car while the gear is safely ensconced in the SkyBox. It really is much safer to have the gear in the box instead of in the car – high speed impacts (and even low speed impacts) can toss stuff around if it’s loose in the car. Better to have it safely stowed.
I admit that I enlisted the help of an experienced Yakima rack system putter-onner when installing the rack system and the SkyBox on my car. It was really pretty simple to install, but having another person was really helpful and eliminated about seven thousand trips to the other side of my car to make sure everything was even. And it really was quite nice to have him just show me how to install things like lock cores instead of having to read the directions, which my readers know I hate to do. So we got the base rack system and the SkyBox installed in about forty minutes, which is really pretty good for two people who are uptight enough to try to get everything exactly perfectly even down to the millimeter. The SkyBox itself just basically slides onto the crossbars and snaps tight, and when you lock the box, it keeps anyone from being able to just walk up and steal your precious gear hauler (assuming you’ve also put locks on your crossbars to keep someone from stealing THEM).
The Skybox is cool because it can open from either side, so you can put it on either side of your car (or in the middle, and access it from either side) and has a stiff lid for easy open and close. To open, twist the handle and pull up, and to close, just push down until the latch catches. Then lock and go. Simple. You can go with the low-pro look of the black matte SkyBox, or the bling of the SkyBox Pro – they are the same thing, only the Pro has a silver top. I went with the regular black, because I’m stealth like that. I also appreciate that the silver “SkyBox” sticker can be easily removed for ninjas like me.
Best of all, the SkyBox holds a really incredible amount of stuff. I tested the SkyBox 12 and and let me tell you, this thing can fit a lot of gear. It is enormous. I haven’t even really maxed it out yet; it is cavernous. I almost went with the SkyBox 16, which is even bigger, but I’m happy with the 12 since I like to have extra room on my crossbars. If all you need is a ski carry, the SkyBox 12 might prove a little big for your needs, but if you’re ever going to be carrying packs or luggage, you will love the extra room. People like me, who like a clean car, will go nuts over the SkyBox. Finally I have a means by which to keep people from throwing their crap all over my car – the rule in the Head Geargal’s car is if it doesn’t belong to me, it goes “In The Box”. Don’t even try to put your snowy boots on my back seat. That leather ain’t cheap and I don’t want to ride home in a stuffy car with your smelly boots. In the box!
I wasn’t able to use the spoiler with the SkyBox – it just wouldn’t fit on there all together and the spoiler was too close to the sunroof on my car. I was worried about wind noise without the spoiler, but either my car is super airtight or the wind noise isn’t that bad, because I’m not bothered. It’s noiser than it is without the box on there, but not disturbingly so. And finally I can carry my grain scoop shovel wherever I go! What – you think I’m kidding?
Julbo Explorer Glacier Glasses
November 27, 2008
Holy bug eyes, Batman! I would love wearing these Cat 4 glacier glasses for the “beetle look” alone. The lenses are pretty round and shiny, no doubt about it. They’re not totally dorky, but they will definitely remind you either of insects (but cute ones) or World War I flying aces (with Cat 4 lenses in their goggles). But for this Geargal, whose eyes are so sensitive that she meets Alaska’s three months of winter darkness with a sense of relief, these are just the ticket. I’m one of those people who wears Cat 4 lenses even in the winter months, because I just can’t stand bright light. I even went through a bunch of trouble and expense to get a permit to tint all my car windows limo-dark. It was so worth it, I never get achy, dry eyes anymore, and I don’t get chafed by the sunglasses I was having to wear in all daylight hours. And no one can see in, so I can do WHATEVER I WANT in my car and no one can see me. This comes in handy when making rude gestures at people. But then when I’m in a normal car, I forget that people can see me, so I get busted all of the time making faces and staring at people. Anyway. Sunglasses. So it was getting hard to get me out of my car. I would lock all the doors and howl “but it’s BRIGHT out there!” Luckily for me the Explorers came along and I could join society again. Sorry, society.
The Cat 4 lenses mean they are dark, dark, dark, and the plastic guards on the sides block out almost all of the reflected light. This means I can spend a sunny day on the glacier without being incapacitated by glare by the end of the day. Regular sunglasses let in too much light from the sides and underneath, but the Explorers are designed to block most of that out while not interfering with your peripheral vision. Putting these on when it’s bright out is an amazing relief.
Julbo warned me that these aren’t really made for smaller faces, and that’s somewhat true – they fit my face just fine but the arms (is that what they’re called? You know, the things that go over your ears. Yeah, the arms go over your ears. You know what I mean) are too long and I have to tighten the lanyard to really get the glasses to sit correctly on my face. This just means that Julbo should make these in a smaller size as well, because women need glacier glasses too!
The Explorers do have a tendency to fog when I’m running or skiing, but maybe that’s because of my tendency to breathe with my lower lip jutted out when I’m running or skiing. Quite a mystery, that. If I’m not wearing a hat I don’t have the problem with the fogging, but my point is that while the Explorers sit pretty close into your face, they don’t seal to your face like goggles so you can still fog them up. But they are definitely usable as goggles, for the most part.
My one big beef with these is that my pair is black with neon green accents on the sides (the pair above has black where the neon green is on mine). Hello, what is this, 1991? It is not necessary to bring neon back. I really don’t understand the need for the neon. They’d be way cooler if they were just black. But since these save me an immense amount of eye irritation and allow me to go have fun in the outdoors without resorting to wearing ski goggles for everything, I can put up with a little neon.
Available at backcountry.com! Click here.
Eureka E!nergy 9 Tent
November 26, 2008
There are few things more attractive to this Geargal than having creature comforts while in camp. Long gone are the days when I could subsist for five days in the backcountry with a tarp, a hunk of cheese, and three pounds of chocolate. Now that I’m old, I like comfy camps with lots of gourmet food; snuggly, soft beds, and these crazy things called “utilities” by which hot water and light come easily. Unfortunately, all these things are also quite heavy (especially the utilities, ever try to transport a power plant?) and as I’ve gotten older I’ve also gotten increasingly reluctant to carry heavy things. It’s one of life’s little ironies. When you’re young, you can’t be bothered to arrange a nice camp and don’t care if you forget your stove, don’t have any water, or hadn’t bothered to bring enough food; so you end up going ultralight just out of sheer thoughtlessness. When you’re old, forgetting your stove is enough to send you scurrying back to the car. Fine, it’s enough to send ME scurrying back to the car. But anyway, when you’re old enough to really want all that stuff that makes camp bearable, you are too old and decrepit to carry it. So you need to start bringing young people so they can carry all your stuff – which is the only reasonable argument I’ve ever heard for having children. I don’t have any children, so I have students instead. They must learn how to carry heavy loads, I reason, and when they see how comfortable I am in camp with all of the heavy things they’ve carried in, they will be inspired to make their own nice, comfortable camps. See, I make them carry my stuff because I CARE.
So, the next time you head to the backcountry with ten teenagers, give them this tent – and its accompanying car-battery-size power pack – to carry. They might moan and complain but it will all be worth it as you zip the door shut on their whining and kick back in your fully-powered backcountry paradise. The E!nergy 9 has three regular, normal outlets and pretty blue LED lights so that you can find the outlets even in the (shudder) dark. You can charge up your iPod to ensure that you’ll always have tunes to block out the sound of your children, students, or hapless camping partners grumbling about how you won’t let them use the blow dryer you brought along.
But seriously, I don’t know whether the power pack can handle powering a blow dryer. But it can handle some lamps, charge a camera battery, and provide power for an assortment of lower-wattage type items. I wish I had more examples of what you could use the outlets for but lamps and camera batteries are the only things I can think of that I’d want to plug into my tent. Oh, wait, I forgot! The 9′ X 9′ floor space means there is plenty of room for your inflatable mattress as well, and you can plug the air pump into the tent to avoid distasteful physical labor. There you have it, the perfect camping tent.
Be warned, it’s really heavy, even without the power pack. It’s bulky, too. So you might have to reserve this one for car camping, or for when you really do have lots of people to help carry things and you’ll be out there for long enough that electric lights and recharged camera batteries seem like manna from heaven. If you have a child or significant other who feels nervous about roughing it, break them in gently by taking them camping in the E!nergy tent. If they think that’s what camping is like, you’ll be able to convince them to try longer trips. Just don’t tell them that you won’t be able to bring along the E!nergy tent because you are not Superwoman, unless of course you are, in which case please bring me camping and carry this tent when we go.
Note: Family pictured not included with tent. I will leave it up to you to decide whether this is good news or bad news.
Crumpler Sinking Barge Photo Bag
November 17, 2008
OK, confession time. I am not a photographer. The complexities of creating the beautiful images that grace web pages and walls everywhere are lost on me. At best I’m a picture-taker, so I would never call myself a photographer. I am, however, the esteemed picture-taker who has captured the images displayed on the Geargals site header, so I’ll just go with that as my qualifications for reviewing this photo bag from Crumpler. And an arduous task this is, too, because it’s going to be tough to convey how cool this bag is. In the picture above it just looks like a backpack, eh? Well, it’s a backpack all right, but it has every single photography-oriented feature that a picture-taker could think of. It has a special, shaped, padded pocket for your 35mm or your SLR (which I do have, by the way, so I know), little places for something called “film” (which I understand they used to use in the seventies, or something), and even a laptop sleeve and various other stashing-places for other stuff.
Like I said, I’m not a photographer, so I tried like hell to find another use for this bag. It fits a smaller frame well, is impossibly sturdy, and since I like bags with lots of compartments, I was determined to be able to use it for something other than lugging cameras, which I don’t do, well, ever. Alas, it’s pretty specialized and really is best as a photo bag. I can contend that it is a darn good photo bag, though, and Crumpler uses material that is practically bulletproof. Any field photographer would adore this bag and I don’t think it will ever wear out. It’s not light, but we’ve had that discussion, folks – it can be tough and not light, or light and not tough. If I were interested in protecting delicate photo equipment, I’d go with “tough”, but that’s just me. And I don’t think you’ll find much tougher than Crumpler (despite the name, “crumple” is something this bag absolutely won’t do). Crumpler makes a lot of messenger bags, photo bags, and various other types of stuff for haulin’ other stuff, and all of it is made with tough fabrics, sturdy construction, an eye for detail, and a weird name. Seriously. I’m not sure why they named this the “Sinking Barge” as that’s not really the image that I want to evoke in a bag that’s got all my cameras in it, but hey. I’m a reviewer, not a marketer….
