Highgear: Altitech 2 Altimeter

Ever since seeing my buddy Dave's cool Suunto Altimeter watch last January, I had been lusting over an Altimeter. Finally one morning last September, I was in the middle of my morning space out ritual checking out what was new on Steep and Cheap and my wait came to an end. I exercised my inner backcountry dork and purchased a Highgear Altitech 2 Altimeter for the low low price of $64.81. (Regular Price $140). Due to the low snowfall this winter, it wasn't until the last month that I've really been able to test it out.

Basic Design: Before I finally tried it out, I was a bit hesitant about the clip on design. But I found this to be rock solid. I've been clipping it to the chest strap on my backpack and have had no issues with it coming off. Plus, its far easier to look at than a standard watch.

Altimeter: I did an initial calibration of the altitude (in October) at sea level in San Diego and haven't calibrated it since. In general, the altitude readings have been consistent with those on road signs (Sequoia) and what locals were reading (Jackson). The accumulated altitude tracks vertical both ascending and descending. While I wish you could set it to just track altitude ascended, this isn't a big issue. In Jackson, we did have a small storm roll in one day. The barometric pressure did have an affect on our base elevation, changing it by 300'.

Barometer: Like I said, there was a small storm that rolled in. We did see the barometer drop. However, it wasn't big enough to really be an adequate test. Once I see how it performs in a real storm, I'll update this section.

Thermometer: Like many watch based thermometers, the accuracy of the thermometer is questionable and is definitely heavily influenced by your body temperature. Last weekend, at 10,100 ft, the thermometer read 79F while on my chest strap. However after 20 minutes with the backpack laying on the snow, it had steaded out at47F.

Compass: It tracks well with my standard compass. However, in cold weather (20F was the coldest I've used it in), the entire Altimeter functions very slowly. By this I mean that there is a significant lag when shifting functions and scrolling displays do not show up clearly. This results in making the compass almost useless. So I intend to still bring a regular compass with me on my trips.

Overall, its a solid product. I bought it mostly for the Altimeter function and that functions excellently. Also, even if you just want to use it for the watch function, its much more convenient to look at while clipped to your backpack than it is to look under your glove at a standard watch.

Sequoia National Park: Soccer Fields

Over the last few weeks, winter has finally arrived in Southern California. This Friday afternoon, I packed up my car, picked up my friend Brett, and headed north for my first trip of the year to Sequoia National Park. We arrived at our friends' Chris and John's house in Three Rivers 6.5 hours after leaving San Diego (gotta love LA traffic!). As always, they were great hosts and greeted us with great food and lots of wine. Over the course of the night, the rest of our friends (Carl, Dianna, and Tyler) arrived.

We set out the next morning at 6:30 to head up into the park. On our way up, we stopped to use the restrooms at the Wolverton recreation area. This was the site of the day's first major lesson. Carl, Tyler and I were all sitting on the toilet trying to do our business. The conversation goes something like this:
Tyler: Don't you hate it when you're trying really hard to go because you know you'll eventually have to and the last thing you want to do is to have take a pooh when you're out on the trail?
Carl: Dude......whatever you do, DON'T PUSH! This friend of mine who's training to be a nurse has been doing EMT ride a-longs. He told me that seemingly every night around 7:30, they get a call for some 50 year old guy who just had a heart attack. He gets home from a bad day at work, his wife gives him grief about something, so he heads up to the bathroom to take a pooh and escape from it all. Unfortunately, he pushes too hard and he ends up having a heart attack. So whatever you do, DON'T PUSH!
We all have a good laugh about it. I finish and head out to the cars. It seemed that both Tyler and Carl took Carl's pearls of wisdom to heart as they didn't come out of the bathroom for what seemed like a good 10 minutes.

We set out from the Wolverton parking lot (7200') around 7:30. We initially started on the Panther Gap trail before taking a left and heading up the Pear Lake trail, which took us up to the "Hump". (9200') The trail is marked with Yellow Reflective Squares on the trees. However, they are spaced very far apart. If there isn't already a skin track in place, the best recommendation I can give is to aim to stay on top of the ridge as it climbs up. Unfortunately, Carl had to bail out before we got to the hump due to knee pain from a pre-existing injury.

From the hump, we left our skins on and descended a few hundred vertical feet to get to Heather Lake. After crossing Heather Lake (watch out later in the season...Carl broke through the ice 2 seasons ago), you climb a few hundred feet to the base of the ridge on the other side of the lake. This is the base of the run we call the Soccer Fields. They're called the soccer fields, because the top looks like 2 soccer fields that were placed end on end at a 20-25 degree pitch.
We broke trail and after another hour (4h20min after leaving the parking lot), we were up at the top (10,100').

View From the Top of the Hump

John, Steve, and I made it up to the top before all of the others. We were surprised when we saw how far back Brett had fallen. When he got a little closer, we saw him clutching a single pole with both hands to help him on the skin up. It turned out that one of his 10 year old Life Link carbon fiber poles had snapped when he used it knock snow off his boot. Since backcountry skiers have to adapt and overcome, that's what we did. Using duct tape and a piece of a tree branch, we built a splint to hold the two pieces of his pole together. The pole was a few inches shorter, but it held up for two laps and the skin out.The top of the soccer fields is a wide open 20-25 degree slope. Because of its northern exposure, the snow had stayed dry despite the warm temperatures and we got in some fabulous turns. After about 550 vertical feet, the wide open slope gives way to a fun 350 vertical ft mix of rocks and trees. Overall, we were skiing on 8-12" of soft, relatively dry fluff.
When we got ready to skin up for the second run, we ran into our second equipment issue. Both of my Life Link poles mysteriously would not let me change their length. When I loosened the lower half of the pole (which after a few turns is supposed to let the pole extend or contract), it wouldn't move. It felt like the piece in the upper half of the pole that the lower half screws into was jammed. After 10 minutes of fighting with the pole, I gave up on it. (WD-40 later that evening seemed to do the trick)

On the second skin up, I started cursing myself for the steep skin track I had laid. Apparently, my thin straight skins had better traction in the fresh snow when I was breaking trail than in the slicked beaten-down skin track when we were heading up the second time. Once again, I seemed to be moving back 1 ft for ever 2 ft I went forwards, was cursing Jim (from Norpine) and was thoroughly frustrated.

The second run was also great. This time we went a bit further to skier's right when going through the rocky section. Towards the bottom, John skied past us over what he thought was a rollover. It ended up being a 20 ft cliff. John, being the great skier that he is, took the surprise with ease and landed it beautifully. So then, after a bit of goading, I decided to huck myself off of it too. John said the landing was super soft and that the conditions were ideal. Still I had never really jumped anything bigger than 10' before. So I was very nervous and I thought about it a little too much. I didn't chicken out. However, I also didn't approach it with the right attitude. Even though I decided to jump, I was hesitant about it. I took one turn too many, killed too much speed, had to really push off to clear the rock, got leaning back too far and the result was a complete yard sale. I ended up being fine and I'm glad I did it. But in the future I really need to approach it with an attitude of success. Attitude really is everything!At this point we decided to head home for the day. Once we got to the hump, instead of following the skin track back, we went to skier's right along the ridge and skied down a beautiful, north facing, 25-30 degree meadow with a sprinkling of sequoias. Due to the lower elevation, the snow much heavier than the Soccer Fields. But with a little speed it was very skiable and a lot of fun. It would definitely be a great place to come back to after a fresh snowfall. Once we made it to the end of the meadow, we traversed to skier's left until we made our way back around the ridge to the Pear Lake Trail. After a fun luge run, we found ourselves back at the parking with a cold 12 pack of beer waiting for us. All in all, it was another great day in the backcountry.

Guest Blog: Skiing in China

My father, Jere Leister, is currently living in Beijing, China and has shared some of his thoughts on his experiences skiing in China.

A month ago I went skiing near Beijing with my Taiwanese friend, James. It’s single run of man made snow was far from great, but I had a good time and worked out my old legs for a couple hours. So, when he asked me to go with him to the best ski resort in all of China over the Chinese New Year holiday, I thought why not? On-line I saw that the Yabuli Ski Resort was indeed billed as “China’s largest ski area with over 300” snow/yr and recent investments totaling over 150 million U.S. dollars… In 1996, chosen as the site of the 3^rd Asian Winter Games. …. 700 sets of skis in very good condition. … 9 trails, which are as challenging as any trail in Switzerland or North America.” It all sounded pretty good, and my friend made reservations to fly to Harbin.

The first surprise came after arriving at the hotel when we arranged for transportation to the slopes. They said if we boarded the bus at 7:00 AM we’d get to the slopes by 11:00; leaving only a half day to ski. The bus came half an hour late, but the on-board “tour director’s” cynical commentary on Heilongjiang life (translated to me by James) made the time pass pretty quickly.

There were remnants of old snowfalls in Harbin (more than normal in Salt Lake or Denver) so I hoped I’d see a lot up north. As we got close I realized that it was not to be; there was, perhaps, 6 inches on the ground. This was in-line with another realization when we got to the ski area. Only 4 of us got off the bus to go skiing. Most of the passengers were from the south of China and were just on a trip to see the Manchurian country side.

But my first sight of the mountain again made me hopeful. Even if the snow cover was minimal…I saw two mountains and the far one looked like it might have some decent vertical. Of course there followed another surprise… the upper mountain was off-limits, only for use by government ski team members.

As you can see it was a blue sky day. That was a treat since Beijing is almost always overcast. After another bus to the actual ski area, I went to the rental shop. Their skis all looked like they’d never been tuned or sharpened. (On a side note, you can also rent ski clothing there too.) Oh well, I guess I really wasn’t on this trip for the skiing. But, my friend was psyched because, even though he was restricted to the beginner slopes, they were at the top of the mountain and he could have full time instructor for minimal cost.

I skied the five runs numerous times, despite two them probably (but not clearly) being closed, and joked with my friend each time I went to the top of the single lift. The day was sunny and the people, just like everywhere in China, were all very friendly and enthusiastic. I was glad for a chance to use my Chinese with the people on the lift

and as always in China we had great lunch:

….and I got to see how they made so many huge death cookies… by “mining” instead of making snow:

And then the real reason I went with James… after getting back to Harbin that night he called some friends who happened to live there and they showed us a night on the town… ( no photos I can publish). The next day we toured Harbin’s sights… they are known for their snow sculptures… the second one was the most surprising..