Fernie Day 6: It's Still Snowing

Day 6 now. We had a few beers last night and some late hot tub action in the neighbouring Lizard Creek Lodge, so I didn't get a chance last night to post anything.

So yesterday, which was our fourth day on the hill, was supposed to be greeted with around 20cm of fresh snow... It was more like 30. To get to the White Pass area you first head up the Timber Bowl Express and then ride down to the White Pass Chair. That first run was all fresh, and easily 30cm. It was going to be another good day.

Things actually turned out to be a little slower than the first three days. We formed a larger group than normal in the morning and we also had the cameras with us. It was more stoppy-starty, but we did get a few nice shots and a little bit of good footage. Note to self: riding follow cam in thigh-deep powder results in a seriously wet camera!

In the afternoon, Martin, Ciara and I took a few laps in the Lizard Bowl, which was still deep and fluffy in a fair few places. Second note: this mountain is littered with hits everywhere. Something I've always liked about Chamonix in the past - it's similar here. Great fun. I've been getting some decent air at times. We then headed back to the appartment to get shovels and over to White Pass to look for a kicker spot.

Unstrapped from our boards, we did a good deal of hiking around in the soft stuff, which was hard work. By the time we found something we liked the look of, it was time to head down off the hill. We just didn't have enough juice left to get up to where we think the run-in will be, so it's going to need checking out this morning.

The last run down off the hill was great. Simon took us a run we hadn't been on before - the sides of which were still yeilding really good snow. Tracked for sure, but still soft and knee deep, good enough for getting slashes and nice turns. There was also fun to be had in and around the trees.

Here are some pictures from the day:

View from balcony.

Mart working on the barrel roll - he stomped one of them into the pow, so sick!

Ciara picking out her line.

Me getting some fresh in this line.

This is a frontside 3 off of a cat-track. It felt pretty big, but the best part is that I stomped it as clean as you can get. It's taken a few rag-dolls to hammer home the land with more weight on the back of your board message - but I nailed this one. Gonna try and get a few on the camcorder...

Fernie Day 5: Lost For Words

It's our fifth day in Fernie, it's 7am here. My Blogger settings are still configured for the UK, so sometimes the day number won't match the post date... Today will be our fourth day on the mountain; yesterday was our third - which is what I'm going to tell you about now (I was way too tired last night!)

There was more fresh snow yesterday morning when we set out, enough to get us excited. They'd also opened most of Lizard Bowl which meant new, fresh powdered terrain to explore.

Ciara, Simon and I were looking for some fairly open terrain to get Ciara used to really picking the speed up in powder; with it being so deep here, it's a totally new ball game for her (and me, kinda).

We found it, dead easy, just next to the Bear Chair. There was so much snow we could just lap it... Some deep bits, real fresh going through the trees, nice cat tracks to get air off, so good.

And that was the story of yesterday. Quite literally it was powder all day. You see, it didn't really stop snowing at all. Tracks that were there at the start of the day were filled in by 2pm. By 3pm it looked like a fresh dump. Seriously, during the course of the day there was comfortably 6 inches of new snow!

Lapping in Lizard bowl in the morning, we moved to the White Pass area in the afternoon and continued to get fresh. Mart has been saying that he's probably only ridden 6 runs or something since he's been here - but it's been powder all the way. I still don't even know what this mountain looks like. I haven't seen any groomed runs. It feels like I'm away from the runs all the time, but when you check the trail map at the end of the day you see that you've been on a marked piste!

And yesterday the snow was special. I've never seen anything like it. We were all lost for words. It was so light and fluffy, like cotton wool. I tried to take a picture of it, but I don't think it does it justice.

Looking now at the data for the last 24 hours, Fernie is reporting another 20cm of fresh snow. I knew it. The forecast for yesterday was 3cm, and we got 20! The Griz heard us calling all right! That's a full meter since Saturday when we rolled into town.

There's no way I can shave this beard off now - despite the pain of facial freeze. I'm sure the Griz will understand that I trimmed the 'tash a little :)

Oh, I forgot, I also dropped a pretty sweet cliff yesterday, just under the Timber Bowl Quad. Mart had his camera out and I got a pretty nice shot. Yeah! The landing was steep and fairly soft, but not as soft as I would have liked. We dropped a smaller rock formation earlier in the afternoon and the landing was untouched, steep, and easily 40cm fresh. That's more like it.

Here are some other pictures Mart took with the 30D... pretty cool. Will today simply be more of the same? It just won't stop snowing, so why not, eh?

Fernie Day 4: Morning Update

8:30 here. About to head out to the lift. We don't know which bowls are open yet; if they've opened Lizard and/or Cedar that's a whole lot of fresh pow to be ridden. We might also see groomed runs for the first time today :-0

Checking the weather forecast it looks like it's going to be cold again: -23. Ouch. I wonder whether there will be fewer people on the hill today than there were yesterday?

Amazingly it seems like the snow is going to continue to fall:

Fernie Snow Forecast | Snow Report | by E-mail

I wouldn't be surprised if the actual amount turns out to be more!

On a different note, I'm getting some dodgy jetlag. It's either that or this head cold that I picked up on the journey out here. The first two nights I was awake at 2am, then 3, then 4, then 5 and then getting up at 7am. This morning was slightly better, I woke first at 3am and then at 5. The difference today was that I couldn't get back to sleep. Maybe I'm too excited? :)

Fernie Day 3: Epic Powder

So much snow.

The official snow report shows that Fernie had 71 cm of snow in the last 48 hours. Awesome. There was so much snow up there today. It was everywhere. Heading for the Elk chair first thing this morning, Simon, Martin and myself stepped out of the Cornerstone basement - the door was practically snowed in. The visibility had cleared up and we were hoping for some of Fernie's steep and deep.

71cm. So lucky that we arrived when we did. Similarly to yesterday, it took longer for the lifts to open. We had a 15 - 20 minute wait for the Bear Chair to open, which is what took us up to the beckoning powder.

Our first run of the day was off of Cedar Ridge. Simon's knowledge of Fernie has been a huge benefit. I wouldn't have known where to go first on the last two powder days. We stopped at the side of the piste and Simon said "right, we're going down there to the left." No way. It was steep and straight into the trees...

I wanted to stop and take some photos; to catch the scale of the whole situation. But people were literally racing to get the fresh lines, so all I managed was one quick snap.

That first run this morning was the best powder I've ever ridden. It was so deep. After the trees it opened up into a wide powder face. Quite a few times I just dug in, followed by a supreme rag-doll. When stopped, given the gradiant of the slope, the snow was up around your chest. When getting it right it was pure surfing. Huge slashes of powder; up and above your head. It was the real deal.

Remember me saying this morning that it was going to be cold? Well, it was around -24. Absolutely freezing. Taking your gloves off to take a photo on the lift - you've got like a minute before your hands feel like they're going to drop off.

My beard froze. I'm not kidding. I first noticed it on the first lift. It was starting to get a little sore. But once I was in the snow and slashing powder around my face, it really took a beating. It made my face blead where I lost some of the hair. So cold. The type of coldness where your skin starts sticking to stuff... I've never experienced this cold. Check out this picture:

So Martin took the Fish out today - for the first time. He was hating it at first. Just not versatile enough. But after a few more runs he was starting to feel it out. Simon and I watched him tear up terrain that we'd struggled with. The Fish has its place and Mart was knocking on that door today. Pretty sweet. I was going to test it out but feared that I would end up wanting to go buy one if I liked it...

Despite the epic conditions, the three of us all had problems today. First of Mart was suffering from the dreaded goggle-steam/freeze. It was almost impossible to avoid it. Any moisture on your lense and it froze. No way to thaw them out on the hill... simply too cold. Luckily he had a spare lense, but it didn't take long before the reduced visibility was back.

Simon had a snapped binding strap. Not sure if it was cold enduced, but definitely an annoyance.

Along with the facial-freeze, I also ended up with goggle freeze. However, I decided that I'd try riding without goggles as there were runs that I wanted to take, and I wanted to be able to see. That's a mistake in deep powder. As soon as the cold snow splashed up into my face and eyes it started to freeze...

Which leads me onto the second best fun of the day. We were riding near Cedar Ridge and Simon spotted tracks heading further into Cedar Bowl, which was marked as out of bounds. We were quite far down so we couldn't make the full traverse, but we got far enough to ride down KC's Chute. We had to walk/hike about 75 meters, which was so hard. The snow was waste deep in places. We were crawling at times.

Then we were at the top of the chute. It was at this point that I gave up on my goggles - they were frozen up, un-recoverable. I had to ride the chute with no goggles. It was steep and I'm sure the fesh snow was close to 90 cm in places. Strapping in after the hike - it was hard to even get started. I just burried in the first three times I set off. I ate up half of the chute with rag-dolls and kart-flips. But then I opened things up and just let the speed pick up. It was amazing. Overall it wasn't as good as the first run of the day, but the second half of that chute was the best ever. Insanely deep and I was just floating - slashing snow everywhere. Simon let me hit it first and he said that as soon as I made one turn I was lost from view; snow everywhere.

Riding it out towards the next lift up, I was trying to look over my shoulder and check Simon's line. He caned it. My eyes were practically frozen shut. By time I got to the lift I could hardly open them. I had to warm up the ice before my eyes would fully open again. So cold. So good.

It doesn't take long for things to get tracked out around here. Everyone seems to know the best places to go. But there's still quite a few areas of the mountain that haven't been opened, and they're still fresh. Maybe we'll get to hit them tomorrow.

After finishing up today we headed down into town. Simon needed to get a replacement strap and we all needed to stock up on some food. This is me, this evening, checking the days photos and writing this post. 60 cans of Canadian Kokanee, all cold, and serving as a decent laptop stand. I've been in these snowboarding boots for around 12 hours. I'm happy. Pizza is on the way, we've had two great powder days and the beer is cold. There's still loads of good riding to come...

Fernie Day 3: Morning Update

It's stopped snowing. It's around 8am here, getting ready to go out. According to the weather information it dropped around 27cm last night. Looking out of the window confirms this.

That's like 55cm in the last two days. I can't wait to go out today.

It's gonna be cold mind with a temperature high of -11, need to wrap up :) Not sure if the helmet cam is gonna work; apparently anything less than -10 is a no-no. We will see :)

Fernie Day 2: The Griz Doesn't Disappoint

I woke this morning to the sound of a cat passing by our window. Man I was excited; like a child at Christmas...

With good reason too. After arriving in resort last night, the snow continued to fall throughout the evening, and then through the night. We were chatting with a local who was predicting 25 - 30 cm of fresh. This morning the result of the new snow was closer to 40 cm. The Griz came through on our first day. Sweet.

We had to wait around some before they opened the lift, something like 30 minutes, while they made things safe up the top. At the start of the day there wasn't too much open, two or three of the bowls were closed. But Simon took us to a pretty quiet area in White Pass that we lapped all morning, and it was close to fresh throughout. It was all good.

Excellent in fact. Some of the best powder I've ever ridden, and it was so good riding through the trees. Such a great first morning/day. I can't wait to see more of the mountain.

The avalanche bombing contineud as the day went on.

After lunch I took the helmet cam out to give it its first run. The results were mixed. The quality is good enough, no doubt. But I had the positioning on the helmet a little off, and it showed. With lots of movement the video recorded isn't exactly smooth, but it is good at times. Tomorrow, I think I'll try using the camera in the hand, and see what those results are like. I might end up trying to tape the camera to the helmet in hope of achieving a more stable finish.

We were all pretty tired by time the lifts closed, so we hit the hot tub; loosen up the muscles ready for tomorrow. It's really good that they've got one here at the Cornerstone Lodge, it makes a big difference.

It has snowed all day and it's still snowing now. The temperature is also dropping. Tomorrow should be great, especially as the weekend has now gone, the slopes will be much quieter. More powder...

Fernie Day 1: Getting There

It's been a long day.

We set off this morning, UK time, at 02:45. By the time we'd collected Martin, dropped the cars off and arrived at the airport it was 06:45, for a 09:30 flight. The flight upgrades we'd opted for came in handy as we jumped straight to the front of the queue. But it wasn't all plain sailing.

The upgrades are booked with Inghams, the tour operator, but the airline is Monarch, so that's who we were checking in with. There's definitely a disconnect between the two, as the guy behind the counter was telling us that we were gonna have to pay £20 each to take snowboards because it didn't eplicity state on the tickets that we'd paid for this... What? After paying £220 to upgrade. No way. The following discussion ended in us checking our boardbags for free; it turned out that he was a nice guy.

I was however right to be concerned about the weight of my bag. It came in at 34.5 kg, with the absolute allowable weight being 32. He was fine with me diverting items to our other bags that weren't heavy, so after a quick bit of re-packing in the middle of a crowd we were set.

Well not quite. Manchester airport has the worst system I've ever seen for dropping off your over-sized luggage. A real bottleneck. Every person with a big bag queues to get into a small room, where they lift their bag onto a conveyer, wait while it is scanned and then have their boarding card checked. It took ages.

By the time we'd been through security there was around 30 minutes left before boarding. I was kinda hoping for a relaxed breakfast.

And then there was the flight itself. It wasn't all bad. The perks that come with upgrading are quite nice: bigger seats, free drinks and a healthy selection of films to watch. The food was good too.

There was also this cool view out of the window as we flew over Greenland.

But they ran out of beer! I had one can and then the next time I asked for one it was all gone. Damn it! What's more, we were flying into a 200 m.p.h. headwind for a large portion of the journey which added an extra 1 hour and 45 minutes. Total flight time was just shy of 10 hours.

I'm writing this on the coach transfer from Calgary to Fernie. There's an hour to go and it's just gone midnight, UK time. Given that I only slept for two hours last night before setting off, I'm pretty tired. In fact, we're all sick of the journey.

At least the views have been good.

But you know what? I'm stoked. We've already ordered our passes and they'll be delivered to our room later on, so no hanging around first thing tomorrow morning. We've also been given the info on booking a day of cat-boarding, which we hope to do towards the end of the week, maybe Thursday.

And it's snowing. It's snowing here on the road and we're told it's snowing in Fernie. Local time is now 17:00. There should be plenty of time to get things sorted tonight and I'll wax my board too. Awesome.

We just spotted three Cayotes... It's time to turn the laptop off.

Note 1: the terrain out here is amazing. It's totally different to the UK (I guess that's obvious). Calgary and the towns we've passed so far on the road look really cool. As the plane was decending the land was almost completely flat, and then all of a sudden, the Rockies spring up.

Note 2: the lift tickets out here are mega expensive compared to Europe, especially France. I budgetted £350 for twelve days, and that won't quite cover 10. Oops.

All Set

We set off for Canada tomorrow morning. I almost can't believe that it's here already. Having such a busy week at work has made it creep up I think...

Well I'm all set now. It's an early start tomorrow, around 3am, and all that's left to do is shoot nervous glances at my board bag. It looks heavy. It feels heavy.

I say this every year and it's normally fine, but it's difficult to guess the weight and I don't want hassle at the airport; I certainly don't wanna pay any more after having already upgrading the flight.

I might pop into work later on and weigh the damn thing...

Anyhow, I'm hoping to update things while I'm out there, so with a bit of luck, there'll be some photos and stuff, maybe even some video. The forecast keeps changing, but the trend is some half decent snow on Sunday and Monday. Right now it's registering at 15cm on Sunday... here's hoping for some epic pow!

Final Transeiver Practice

(Well, not the last ever, just the last time before we go to Fernie).

Yesterday we went to the beach again to work with the beepers. With it being less than a week before we head out, it was nice to meet up and share the building excitement, but also useful to practice a little more with the transceivers.

There's nothing to show really, but we did learn some stuff about the differences between the Tracker DTS and the Ortovox M2, which is the unit that Simon owns.

After practicing with both the Tracker and the M2 we found the second phase of the search (single burial) to be much quicker with the Tracker, due to the 5 directional lights on the top of the unit. (The second phase being the time from when you get a signal to closing within 3 meters).

With regards to the first phase, acquiring a signal and the thrid phase, the pinpoint search, the same methods can be used for both models and there isn't much difference between them.

With the Ortovox M2 the directional indicator works by showing a solid triangle on the display when the unit is pointing in the right direction. That, plus the audio signal and the distance read out make it possible to orientate yourself towards the beacon.

The difference with the Tracker is that the unit is constantly updating your direction; you simply turn when the lights change. With the M2 there are two things that make this update less straight forward. First, once the unit is no longer pointing in the right direction you have to stop and find the right direction by re-orientating it; you're not told the direction to turn. Second, the unit has a variable sensativity that needs manual adjustment as you get closer.

We were looking for a reproducible method, which we found after reading some generic guidelines. It is:

• First find a signal
• When a signal is found, find the direction in which the signal is strongest
• Take five steps in that direction
• Find the direction in which the signal is strongest
• Adjust the sensativity if necessary
• Take five steps in that direction
• Repeat until within 3 meters of the beacon
• Do the pinpoint search

It works really well.

After trying it a couple of times, I followed Simon on his search path and marked out the path in the sand. I then searched for the same beacon with the Tracker, starting in the same place. We marked the second search path as the Tracker moved in on the beacon.

As you might expect, the two transceivers took almost identical paths, with the M2 forming a less smoothe curve because we were moving in a series of straight lines. This goes to show that understanding the pattern of the electromagnetic field that a beacon emits can help you with the search. Once you detect that you're on one of the flux lines, you should have an inclination or which direction you'll be turning when you re-orientate.

I wish I'd taken my camera with me. Marking out the different approach lines in the sand was useful in understanding how the units work, and I could have shown that with a few pictures.

We've made other observations about the differences between the two models; each have their strenghts. I'll save the rest of it for a full review, most likely after we get back from Fernie.

A Few New Things

I've picked up a few things over the last couple of weeks that are worth mentioning. First up is The Avalanche Handbook. I was looking for something to read on the subject to add to what I've read in The ABCs of Avalanche Safety. At first glance, and that's all I've given it, the book looks pretty good. I'm basing that purely on the diagrams I've seen and the odd page read here and there. It might turn out to be different. Anyway, it will prove useful on the flight to Canada, along with the free beer.

Next up are a couple of DVDs. I've now got a copy of the much anticipated In Short. I quite like the DVD but I wouldn't say it's an all out winner. I'll save my comments for the review I'm writing.

Another film from this season that I was also looking forward to, that's now in my collection, is La La Land, by Runway Films. I was hooked in by the promising trailer, and watching the beginning of the film, it seemed as though it was going to live up to my high hopes. But it didn't.

It's not a bad film, it just doesn't stand out the way I thought it was going to. Maybe I'll elaborate with a review.

Martin and I were talking recently about the wave of snowboard films that come out each year, and questioning what it is that we're looking for in a snowboard movie. There are so many film crews these days...

Last up are the avalanche probes. Now I know that I've already mentioned the probe, but just this week I picked up a new one. Explanation: I was sorting out the beacons and probes for myself, Ciara and Martin, and ended up getting one of the sets later than the first two. We've all got BCA Trackers now, but I've mixed up the probes: two from Black Diamond and one from BCA.

I'm re-mentioning the probes because before I bought them I spent a good while procrastinating over which type to get. On one hand I was thinking how much difference can it make? and on the other it was I don't want one that's too short, but it's gotta fit in the backpack.

Anyhow, now that I've got them I thought it would be useful to show the differences between the two models that I've got - I'll try to do that this weekend.

With only a week now until we go, I suppose I don't need to say how stoked I am. I can't wait to get there. The excitement builds with each day. This evening I was brushing up my playlist and tomorrow we're heading into town to pick up some bits. Still hoping for some epic snow conditions...

Fernie Snow Forecast | Snow Report | by E-mail

Helmets: Bern vs. ProTec

A while back, I was on the look-out for a Bern helmet, probably the Bern Baker. At the time I was kinda interested in the audio integration (as well as the overall look), but now I'm not so sure. Last season I ended up carrying my shuffle around but not really using it; friends kept complaining when I couldn't hear them...

I'm less sure about a Bern helmet in general. First, Martin doesn't rate the comfort of his Bern helmet, and second, they're really hard to get hold of.

More recently, I've been quite impressed with the ProTec lids; great style. Ciara picked up the classic snow helmet, which I reckon has a clean, no nonsense, low profile look. I really like the style of the assault range and it was a good fit too.

Then there's the the HiFi from Burton, which I've always liked.

To be honest, I'm not really in the market for a new lid as mine works just fine. It's more that I'd noticed a few nice designs while shopping with Ciara. There is however the option of rigging up something more secure for the helmet cam if I've got a spare that can be used solely for that purpose. But hopefully I won't need that if the standard strap does its job.

BCA Tracker Practice Session 2

Yesterday we went to the beach for a second practice session with the beepers. After seeing the multiple burial instructions in this video I was keen to have a go searching for more than one transceiver. The initial stage of the multiple burial search is the same as if you're looking for a single signal, so the practcie was useful for that situation too.

With the BCA Tracker there are two (there might be more?) methods of dealing with multiple signals. The first, which is what I was practicing and is general to all trasceivers, is called the three circle method; with the Track the searcher only uses the regular search (SE) mode. The second and more advanced method described, specific to the Tracker, makes use the transceiver's special (SP) mode.

This is my understanding of the 3 circle method. Once you've found the first signal, assuming you can't turn it off (perhaps because others are still probing/digging), you travel in a circle around the signal looking for a lower distance reading and/or listening for another audio beep. That first circle is three steps out from the lowest distance reading of the original find.

If you don't pick anything up on the first pass you take another three steps back and walk a second circle. Again, if nothing is found you perform a third circle, three steps back from the second. If you still don't find anything you go back to the point at which you left your orginal primary search (when you first detected a signal).

I think the theory is pretty simple. If there's another signal close by, at some point on one of the three circles you'll be closer to it, than the original beacon. This methodical approach seems to be a reliable way of seperating the two signals.

Check out my first attempt; apologies for the cheesy intro...

In this example I located the second signal on the first of the three circles. Note that first time the beeper detected the second signal I was unsuccessful in locking onto it. After returning to the circle it only took a couple more steps before the signal was detected again, this time the dropping distance was conclusive.

And here's my second attempt.

Here are some comments:

Picking up the second signal. In the first case where the signals were closer together, the search was quicker. This may seem obvious, but my orignal expectation was that in cases where signals are close together, they'd be harder to separate. The Tracker easily picks them out when rotated side-to-side.

In the second example it took longer to pick up the other signal. Quite a few times, each in the same area, I stopped to check or tried following a different signal only to turn back to walking the circle. In these cases I was fairly certain that the other beacon was over there, but the data I was getting didn't seem conclusive

Was I walking too fast? Should I have followed my instincts or kept using the circles? I guess more practice would answer some of these questions. Either way, I did end up clearly detecting a much lower signal, and it led right to the beacon.

Audio vs. video. At the time I was definitely paying more attention to the distance read out than the audio beeps. However, after watching the video back it's clear that the beeps are also very informative.

My original approach. Again, something that I didn't think about at the time was the direction of my approach to the first beacon. This should give a clue as to where the other signal is less likely to be.

Nothing found after three circles? If you don't find anything you need to return to the original primary search and continue searching the rest of the deposition area. In this case I'm not sure how you would ignore the first signal if it still wasn't turned off. It seems like it would be in the way...

Overall times. These were my first two attempts at finding two signals. The first search took around 4 minutes and second around 6 minutes. Considering that I was learning the search procedure, I think this is another indication that the BCA Tracker is an easy unit to operate.

Snowboarding Stickers

It might not be your thing, but I kinda like putting a sticker or two on my board. It's not always easy to get hold of decent stickers, especially if you're on the scrounge for freebies.

Well, Martin told me about a site with a decent selection of stickers that are also good quality. The site is B Smarter Graphics.

As you might expect, the stickers here aren't free. What's more, while they aren't stupidly expensive, they're not cheap either. However, after buying a couple myself I can say that they are good. Not only that, the service is up there too: friendly, good delivery, good instructions and dead easy to pay with paypal.

A bit of light relief after all the talk of avalanche safety around here. I hooked up a pretty sick Analog decal with a 32 and a Nitro; the Nitro I bagged last season from Chopp, in Flims/Laax. Check out the T2:

Avalanche Mountain Safety Video

I mentioned recently that I'd re-watched the avalanche safety clip that comes with the extras on Absinthe's More dvd. The video is produced by Teton Gravity Research and is a great instructional aid. In the video they use the BCA Tracker, but I'm sure a lot of the principles apply to all beacons.

I was pointed at the video section on WhiteLines' site as they've got this same safety video. I was gonna suggest that if you don't have the More dvd then it's worth watching this clip... but as it turns out, the video I've embedded here has new stuff that I previously hadn't seen. In addition to covering a single burial search this movie also provides an explanation of transmitted flux lines, and looks at two methods of dealing with multiple burials.

The extra bits that I hadn't seen before are produced really well; the instruction is very clear. If I get a chance this weekend I'm gonna have a go at finding two burried beacons. Check it out...

Avalanche Beacon Practice (BCA Tracker DTS)

Simon, Sarah, Ciara and myself went to the beach on Sunday to get some practice in with the new transceivers. The beach is handy as it provides a nice open space to work with and sand that's easy to dig in. The dune rushes are also good to conceal the exact placement of the transmitting beacon...

It was definitely a useful session. Simon's used his transceiver in the past and I've read a few things here and there and watched some basic instruction. For Ciara this was her first real exposure to working with a beacon. Searching for a signal in a wide open space definitely helped to get a feel for how the transceivers work and how long certain things can take.

The Tracker DTS really is quite easy to use, with single burials at least, as we haven't tried the multiple case yet. I pretty much followed the guidelines in the manual, which cover: 1st getting a signal, 2nd moving to within 3 meters and 3rd performing a pinpoint search.

Our practice searches consisted of:

• Hiding a beacon
• Marking out the avalanche debris pile
• Marking out the last seen point
• Doing the search

The thing that I found most impressive was how reliable the unit was once a signal was detected. In one case Simon actually burried the transceiver outside of the assumed debirs pile, but close enough to be realistic. Totally unaware, once my beacon picked up the signal I blindly follwed it down to 3 meters and then did the fine search. It was spot on.

Here's a video I took of Ciara trying her first search in the open. Despite our banter (watching it back I can see how interfering I am, what a dick!), the video shows how an inexperienced user can go straight to the signal. Ciara started off around 100 meters away and had no idea of where it was burried...

I expect things are less clear when the transceiver is burried deeper beneath the surface, as would be the case with a real avalanche. There's also the issue of probing and then digging... Apparently within 15 minutes there's a 90% chance of survival, of which the digging uses almost all, so you've got to find the signal fast. That's why I think it's important to practice.

All in all it was as much fun as it was educational. We had really nice weather for visiting the beach, and, being at the seaside, we finished things off with fish & chips plus beer :)

ATC 2K Helmet Cam: First-Tests Review

On Friday evening I used and assembled the helmet cam for the first time. The thing that I'm most interested in with this camera is how well it actually attaches to a helmet. Is it going to be practical on the hill? Will it be steady enough for usable video? This is the main subject of this early review.

I do however have some other observations. I won't go into much detail, but I will list them here at the top:

• The video quality is actually ok, as good as I'd hoped
• The sound quality is aweful, almost a waste of time
• Connection to the pc and transfer of files is very easy
• It's not difficult to start and stop recording while the camera remains helmet-mounted

Here are the contents of the ATC-2K package:

The batteries (2 AA), SD card and connections are all at the back, which has a well sealed cover.

Mounting the camera on a helmet

Stability:
A rubber strap is used to wrap around the helmet. The strap is held in place by a plastic buckle, which also acts as the female part of the camera-to-strap connection. It's a slot and click connection.

The strap itself seems good; once in place it's pretty damn tight and doesn't appear to be going anywhere. The major problem with the design is the way that the strap is fed through the buckle. It leaves a gap.

Once attached, the weight of the camera causes it to sag, which in turn causes it to wobble once in motion. As part of the package there are a few rubber strips with sticky backs. I'm certain that these are intended to be used a padding for this gap - to help prevent the wobble.

The padding actually works pretty well. I tried 3 video tests: one with no padding, one with a single rubber strip and one with two pieces of rubber. The difference was cleary visible. The optimum seemed to be a single strip, and it cut out a lot of the wobble.

Side mount vs. top mount:
As per some of the pictures I've seen, it's possible to mount the camera on either the top or the side of a helmet. To facilitate this, the connector that is attached to the camera can be rotated. This means you can set the camera to be level wherever it is mounted.

I chose to side mount the camera for two reasons. 1st, I can't see how the rubber strap will wrap around a helmet to achieve a top mount. 2nd, I think I'll look more of a dork with it in that position.

There are two issues that I've encountered with having it side-mounted. 1st, you can actaully feel the weight of the camera. It's slight, but it's there non the less. 2nd, it really gets in the way of your googles. I'm going to have to wear the goggle strap under my helmet.

Aligning the camera:
I didn't find aligning the camera to be that difficult. After the first attempt of setting it up, I walked around the room looking at specific objects and then watched the video back to see if the camera was looking in the same area. After a few slight adjustments I've made a reference line on the helmet, and it seems pretty reliable.

Robustness:
These comments may be a little premature, but I can't help thinking that a half decent slam is going to smash the whole thing. The camera unit itself seems very solid, but there are quite a few plastic pieces in the whole connection jigsaw, and that seems like a weak link.

What's more, when the camera is disconnected it still has part of the plastic connection wrapped around it. I'd hoped to carry the camera in my pocket as an ultra portable alternative to my video camera, at times when I don't want to carry something larger. Now I'm just worried that I might damage the plastic connector...

Summary:
At this stage, I'm still fairly encouraged. The design of the helmet mount could be better, but it might just work out to be ok. Time will tell. On the plus side, the quality is good enough for what I want and the operation of the camera is dead simple. On the down side, I don't like that plastic connector being wrapped around the camera all the time; it's in the way. I might be able to get it off, but it looks to be a right fiddle.

I'd like to try the helmet cam on my skateboard before I go to Fernie - and see how the footage comes out...