I’ve just posted a review of the Swiss Map 25 DVD electronic mapping product here :

Swiss Map 25 DVD Review

I just added a quick review, a sort of half season review in fact, for the Voodoo from Black Diamond. Basically, I like them and I’m going to keep hammering them….

Black Diamond Voodoo Review

Waiting for the first snow to fall and getting ready for the upcoming is always fun as it always means a few new pieces of kit. In fact, I’ve been replacing a load of old climbing gear as well and I’d already posted an inventory of that here, primarily that’s just my way of keeping track of what stuff weighs.

First, a pair of Black Diamond Voodoo’s for me. My Stormrider XL’s are starting to get slightly tired and I’m not sure they’ll last the whole season. The XL’s are a little heavy at around 4-4.5 kg so I wanted something a little lighter. For ultra light I’ve a pair of Stormrider PIT Lights with Dynafit TLT Speed bindings which are only around 3.6kg all together so I was looking to save around 1kg on this ski. The XL is a versatile ski at 112-76-102 mm but I’ve decided that fatter skis have improved enough to size up slightly so I’m taking this Voodoo at 124-88-115 mm in the longest 185cm length.

I’d looked at the Black Diamond Havocs as well which are a similar ski but use a few more wood layers to make them stiffer and slightly heavier. I also seriously considerd the Black Diamond Kilowatt but at 127-95-116 mm I think it might be awkward on some of the snow we get at times.

I’ve gone back and forth over what bindings to mount on these, on one hand some dynafits and use my Megarides. On the other hand, Fritschi or Silvretta and have the choice of boots. The reason I’d like to use my Megarides is that they’re 1 kg lighter than my Endorphins and that would extend the range of use for the ski. In the end I’ve opted for the Fritschi option, I’d like to be able to use either the Endorphin or Megaride and I’m familiar with Fritschi as I have some Freeride Plus bindings already.

I did consider going for the Fritschi Explores but when you add a brake they’re barely lighter than the Freerides and I get that higher DIN range for skiing with a pack etc.

In fact these skis haven’t been shipped to me yet so I guess I can still change my mind about the bindings !

The next pair of skis are actually for Julie, we wanted something for an occasional tour and light off-piste as her current Stöckli Laser skis are a FIS masters ski and rather thin underfoot. Looking for something light(ish) with a reasonable footprint we came to the K2 Shuks Anne which is a women’s version of the Shuksan. The Shuksan, developed in conjunction with Swiss Guide and Pro Guiding Service owner Martin Volken, is the staple tour ski now from K2 and this is the first year it’s offered in a women’s version. It’s a nice light ski at 2950g per pair and 122-80-107 mm.

These actually are shipped and they’re right here now with some Diamir Fritschi Explores on them, being lighter than me the DIN range on these is just fine for Julie.

I’ve been looking for a new rucksack for ages. I’ve been having some problems with my back for various reasons and I’ve found I need exactly the right sack to be able to comfortably carry any load at all for a full day. I’m still delighted with my Salewa Inversion but they’ve stopped making them and it’s just too small for some days. I think this is a shame, I still reckon the Inversion is one of the best rucksacks ever made by anyone.

The Inversion weighs 1200g and some bits can be stripped to reduce that further. One of the reasons I like the Inversion and dislike many other sacks is the weight. Some manufacturers are shipping ski, ski tour or off piste sacks that weight a ridiculous amount, over 2kg which is just daft, why do people buy these? Don’t they look at the weight? I presume they’re more concerned if their shovel is visible and makes them look sufficiently “hardcore”.

The Black Diamond Revelation is 42L in capacity which is exactly what I wanted and weighs 1550g, again some bits can be stripped to reduce that more. It’s a single compartment top loading sack which I quite like but I know a lot of people don’t. It’s got all the attachments I want, straps for multiple ice tools, crampon straps, ski carrier etc. In fact the ice axe attaches nicely as you can see in the photo’ neatly tucking the pick out of harms way. So far I’ve used this for a two day hike and climbing on the Mönch and it’s been great.

Finally, I’ve been so impressed with the fit of the new g-fit inners on my Megarides that I’ve had some done for my Endorphins as well. The fit on the Endorphins was already good but this just makes it perfect. After a season usage the padlock liners on the Endorphin showed some wear but nothing too excessive so I’ve now got two shells and three inners which I can mix and match.

I’d posted about my Garmin etrex VISTA Cx GPS recently and basically said I was quite happy with it. Since then I’ve noticed a fairly serious problem with it. To recap, I really use it in two ways, to navigate between way points I’ve entered ahead of time and to store my track for geo-tagging photographs. For these things it’s been working fine.

But, a couple of weeks ago we were descending Teysachaux, a local peak, and I happened to glance at the GPS and noticed it was displaying the wrong coordinates, the North position was correct but the East position was wrong placing me 20km further south. I presumed I’d programmed the wrong map datum onto it and didn’t think too much more about it. Later when I checked this at home I found exactly the same error with the same margin and confirmed that it was using the Swiss Grid CH1903. Some more tests showed that the latitude and longitude was perfectly correct and that positions transferred to the PC would be displayed correctly, I presume that the base system is latitude and longitude and that the translation is in error.

I think if I didn’t actually really just use a normal Swisstopo paper map I’d probably have noticed this sooner, in fact I’m not sure if this is new behaviour or it’s been doing this since new. Possibly one of the firmware updates introduced this. Anyway, I managed to contact Garmin by phone as their trouble ticket system wasn’t working and a couple of days later they’ve confirmed the problem and are suggesting they’ll be an update sometime in the next month to address this