I am a gear junkie. There I said it. But if you know me, you already knew that. But sadly it is true. I am also a steep and cheap junkie. Check it out here: www.steepandcheap.com it is both the greatest and the worse website all rolled up into one. It is the greatest for obvious reasons, item after item after item of things that I probably need and the worse because it is item after item after item of things that I truly don’t need, but hey at least I can admit my issue. So anyway I am writing this confessional because yesterday I received my 11th winter jacket in the mail. Yes, I have 11 winter coats. I have them because they all rule and I love them. I bought a Cloudveil (which I love) primaloft puffy coat and so far it is the best, well it is number 2 in my top 11 winter jacket ratings. I love Cloudveil gear and I mean love it! I love what the company stands for and I love the way their products are made. I know me and my new Cloudveil are going to have a lot of fun together. My favorite piece of winter outerwear is my Arc’Teryx gore-tex shell, I don’t think I could love a human baby as much I as I love that jacket. Seriously, every time I put that thing on I have tears of happiness in my eyes. It is a beautiful piece of gear. It is unbelievably bomb proof; it has a Recco reflector on it, good venting, a good amount of pockets, and just loves you back unconditionally by keeping me dry and confortable. Let me say that Gore-Tex is seriously the best invention since the all you can eat pizza buffet and the powder ski, now those two items are in no order because I could most likely write a dissertation about why each one of those things could be the best invention ever. But anyway I love winter clothes, especially jackets, they are my favorite. This is why I long for the endless winter. Now that I have that off my chest I feel a lot better. I sort of promised Melissa no more jackets… *sigh* I am starting to sweat and I think I am having heart palpations.
After much conversion between Melissa and I, and also after getting the opinions of sales people at REI and at Backcountry we bought avalanche beacons yesterday. Melissa and I are starting to ride steeper lines; lines that are in the low 30 degree range and also some slackcountry stuff. After a few inbound slides this year and a few deaths of skiers caused by tree wells, I brought it up and we thought it was worth money for the extra piece of safety gear. I have been researching avy beacons for a while trying to learn everything I could about them and after much thought I decided on the Backcountry Access Tracker DTS. I bought 2 of them yesterday, they will be here by Thursday, so just in time for us to practice with them out in the back yard to get familiar with how they work and also with our early arrival into Bozeman will give us time to practice at the new beacon park in Bozeman and again at the BCA beacon park at Moonlight Basin on Sunday. So we should have a few hours of practice under our belts before we ski the steeper lines at Big Sky and the Dakota Territory zone. Maybe it is silly since we are not going to be doing any hardcore backcountry skiing, but hey safety is a good idea and people have died inbounds due to avalanches and tree wells.
I am hitting the gym pretty hard and I am really enjoying it. I have a pretty good weight lifting routine that I have been doing. I think it is working. I went up 10-15lbs in all of my exercises yesterday. Today is my rest day, I am think I might go and do some cardio stuff, but I have to get my oil changed after work and then home to make dinner so I might just relax tonight.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment