They think its all over...skiing that is!

 

 

 

It's April; officially Spring and the weather in Scotland in the last 10 days or so has been glorious - with the exception of today, Tuesday 3rd April, when a blizzard of Siberian snow swept across the country. As I look out of the window this evening at the setting sun (without a snowflake to be seen) I could be forgiven for thinking its actually early summer, except that the temperature outside is a balmy +3c. I had to rummage out the skiing gear today to stay warm and dry which leads me nicely into the subject of this article.

 

Just when we thought the skiing season was over (in Scotland at least), Jess and Scott have pulled another wee trip out to the Alps to get some last minute (.com!) skiing in before finally packing away the gear for another season. This time its to Kaprun in Austria towards end of April and I'm going with them again. My new Rossies are safely stored in the garage but I'll be polishing them up and I can't wait to get them out there. Kaprun is another resort I've not been to; its Scotties favourite resort for skiing (there's hundreds of resorts I've not been to, so I've got plenty of choice for future holidays). It's a different crew going this time; only three of us from the Val d'Isere outing and Jess is the only girl who made the cut.

 

For me its a chance to hone the skills again and its also the opportunity to buy some more stuff at the end of season ski sales at Ellis Brigham. As I've already got the skis I'm going to buy poles and some kind of hard shell case to transport them both in. A few years ago I bought a Pelican 1600 series hard case for transporting my camera gear. Manufactured from military-grade materials it's solid, robust and has been through a few airports in its time so I'm already convinced of the benefits of hard cases over soft ones to protect my expensive and sensitive equipment. As I'm a bit of a gadget man then this sounds like the kind of gadget a man like me should research before buying and it seems that there's a choice of one manufacturer (Sportube) and three product options; the Series 1, 2 or 3. Well that was easy!

 

The choice comes down to whether I'll transport 1 pair, 2 pairs, 3 pairs of skis (and poles) or a snowboard. The Series 1 (1 pair) is too small to also carry boots and other stuff, but as its only for me why spend extra money buying the Series 2 (2 pairs) if I've only got one pair of skis? Well, in future I may go on trips with a woman who has her own skis and we could both save on extra luggage by only paying one charge, so the extra price of the Series 2 would be recovered in one trip (£50 return for ski equipment on Easyjet).  Also the Series 2 can take boots as well, reducing the weight of normal checked baggage. Or I could just get the Series 3 (3 pairs) in case I take two women with skis, but I'm pushing my luck now!

 

I'll have to see what EB have in stock or I might order on-line. On-line shopping for this kind of product makes sense but only if you know for sure what you're buying and usually the way to do that is to shop retail first of all. Funnily enough, Scottie went retail window shopping for a new pair of ski boots before the Val d'Isere trip, tried on a pair of Salomons, then went on-line and ordered them, saving a few bucks by doing so. However, for the first three days of the Val trip he suffered much pain through the boots not fitting well. Cutting this tale short, he ended up buying another pair of boots in resort, this time properly fitted, so, in my view, whatever money he saved initially was lost on the trip. If I see and touch the right case I'll probably just buy it straight out the shop.

 

After the success of the cameras on the last two trips I'll be taking both again. The Canon and 24-105 lens combo was a success in all conditions but the Drift HD170 suffered a bit. One situation was caused by user error (and alcohol indulgence) but the other seemed to be a product fault. Drift have said they'll replace the camera if it happens again but I'd rather it didn't. We'll see how it goes.

 

Check back over the next few days and I'll update everyone on my views of the sales.

 

Brian

3rd April 2012

 

P.S. One thing I'm planning to do in May that's not skiing is do my first ever bungee jump at the Highland Fling at Killiecrankie near Pitlochry and I'll talk more about that in another blog.