It’s finished at last. It was 10 days ago when I said it would be ready the following day but as I got in to I realised that to do it properly with all the videos included was a much larger task that I had estimated. For those of you who read the whole thing, please feel free to comment or email me but it’s pretty long so please feel free to for use the skip to summary link.
Remember an avalanche transceiver is just a part of avalanche safety. Risk assesment and safe practise will hopefully keep your transceiver inside your jacket rather than in your hand.
I’ve been itching to do some winter climbing for a while, especially during the recent cold snap which has produced some excellent conditions in the UK.
A couple weeks ago I made it down to North Wales where I soloed some very snowed up gullies on Y Garn, nothing too steep but I had a good day out in the hills.
Central Gully
This weekend I finally managed to do my first winter climb, Central Gully on Great End in the Lake District. There’s still plenty of snow and ice on high ground in the Lakes and the conditions were excellent. The climb itself was mainly well consolidated snow up to a short but steep icefall which lead onto a steeper snow finish. The top out brought us into the sunshine for the first time and some well rewarded snap just below the Great End summit.
Been running about in a cold muddy field for most of today testing transceivers. The good news is that the New BCA Tracker 2 is pretty good. I have written the page description and the 2010 Transceiver review should be finished tomorrow but the very brief version is that range is increased by 15%, 3rd antenna has eliminated the spike, new search button is great but the best bit is the super fast pinpoint search. This is easiest the quickest of them all and very difficult to overshoot at all. Criticisms would be that the left and right lights are are jumpy when you are 15 to 30m away, they seem to go from the sides to the centre without using the middle LED’s but they never go from one side to the other without stopping in the middle like some others I have tested. Also the webbing of the harness could have been a little wider. The Tracker 2 is very much like the Tracker 1 in fact, just better.
We received our first stocks of the BCA Tracker 2 yesterday. Since this and the Mammut Barryvox are new to Facewest this season and the last transceiver review we did was in 2007, we have deciced to do another transceiver review. Not only that but we are going to do it today! Here is a shot of the units being tested, results should be written up by tomorrow at the latest.
It was pointed out to us that we were being a bit elitest by only selling the top of the range Silva 6 Jet Spectra thumb Compass. So we have added the Silva 6 Nor Thumb Compass. This is the classic orienteering model from the Silva range, does not have the Spectra markings or the Jet needle but has served a generation of orienteers with no problems at all. In stock and available now.
Facewest now stocks Dynafit bindings. We have the TLT Speed in stock now and the Vertical ST’s will be in stock at the beginning of Feb. Not the binding for everyone but for the dedicated tourer or those luckily enough to have 2 pairs of skis then they are a great way to save a lot of weight when touring. Ski Crampons and Ski Brakes are also available.
