Team building events and corporate hospitality with Sporting Scotland

The Universal Helmet

 

In last week's blog, there is a close up of me in my new tangerine helmet climbing the Coich Nose. Not only is this helmet easy to spot anywhere on the hill.  it is the only helmet that meets requirements for adventure sports such as mountaineering, canoeing, kayaking and mountain biking.

As all sport is also about the kit - this PETZL METEOR III is the perfect choice and weighing just 235 gramms it's hardly noticable in the rucksack or on your head! If you don't like tangerine - it comes in two more subdued colours - but hey, you want to be seen

 

The best so far - Paramo Jacket

When discussing waterproof clothing which is really waterproof, but doesn't make you sweat during exercise or touring, my colleague and friend, Keith Dickinson  http://www.ancala.info recommended the new Paramo Men's Velez Adventure Light Smock. During my visit to the Lake District in October, I bought one, and have never used any other jacket since!

Unlike most other garments which use GoreTex, Sympatex, Teflon or other waterproofing linings, which wear out after a couple of years and then become useless, Paramo uses ANALOGY WATERPROOF by NIKWAX. This enables one not only to wash the garments in the washing machine, but to waterproof it at the same time.

Paramo have different thicknesses, but for me the Light Smock proved to be ideal. Even in temperatures of -18 degrees Celcius, which we had already this winter, I was never cold with the jacket using Icebreaker Merino, another superb product,  as base and medium layers. If it gets really bitterly cold, one can easily wear a down waist coat underneath.

Being able to pack it small and put it in a rucksack makes it my favourite jacket, which travels everywhere with me, and makes it an ideal companion for snow sport. I have had  every opportunity to test it this month!

http://www.paramo.co.uk

Snow Chains

Having ordered snow chains during a period of heavy snow last March,  the chains arrived when nearly all the snow had gone! This year, however, I had them when I needed them and did I need them! We would certainly have been snowed in at Sporting Scotland without them.

So how have they fared during this past month of constant snow cover on Speyside. The quality, being Chinese, is not the best. I noticed quite a bit of wear on them after about 30 miles on half-cleared roads plus some of the links wore out which made the chain brake. Enough spare links fixed all these little problems. I remember from my times in the Alps that we did not remove the chains for 5 months and the chain would rather "eat" the tarmac than the other way round!

After some research and talking to friends in Bavaria and Austria, it seems that the German RUD and the Austrian PEWAG are made for the job and they will last - they also are reversable, which doubles their lifespan. 

No problem getting through these drifts with the snow chains.

Mushrooms by Roger Phillips

This comprehensive guide with over 1250 photographs of mushrooms and other fungi has been described by David Bellamy as a masterpiece of identification.  It has a wealth of descriptive detail and is an essential encyclopedia for mushroom hunters.

Mushrooms - Roger Phillips - Macmillan - 2006- ISBN 0-330-44237-6

2008 - The Year of the Compost Toilet

My eye fell on an article in this Saturdays’s Times, 31.5.2008 titled  “Angel” about the Sunrise Festival  – “the only UK festival to use 100% renewable energy” and composting toilets. According to the  sunrisecelebration.com web site,  “2008 is the Year of the Compost Toilet”.

Well, it might be the only festival using 100% renewable energy, but not the only one using composting toilets. Sporting Scotland has been using them for the past 3 years with really good client response and feedback, in so far as one gets a comment where toilets are concerned. We have one site solely serviced by composting toilets and by the middle of this year our second site will have the same green facilities, which will be a small but valuable contribution to the environment as no run-offs or soak-away pits are needed.

Incidentally, Sporting Scotland has the exclusive dealership in the UK for this particular composting toilet, Made in Finland.  We are marketing estates and adventure companies with our eco toilet. The only point of discussion remains a name to operate under –  Great Outdoor Bogs or Sporting Loos!

I am not sure whether to write this article under Gear and Books, as I imagine that there is a limited need for our readers to purchase one of these, but who knows.

Cameras & Torches

CAMERAS -
Camera - OLYMPUS µ 790 SW
Being interested and keeping up-to – date on the equipment side of adventure, we bought a small digital camera a few months ago. With the vast amount of these cameras on offer, it was difficult to pick the right one, but we found one that had all the features we needed and was – above all – waterproof. It was always a hassle on river trips, during fishing or canyoning to get good pictures, as most of time the camera was safely stored away in waterproof bags or containers – by the time the camera was out – the good photo opportunity was gone!
The OLYMPUS µ 790 SW is great for this kind of outdoor activity; it will survive snowstorms with sub-zero temperatures, heavy rains and will even take pictures under water – all this has been tested by us – especially in heavy rain, as one of our clients left the camera out over night in torrential rain at some abseiling place. It was a good feeling to know that the camera would be OK – it was! It claims to survive drops of 1 1/2 meters. This is one feature we haven’t put to the test yet. The camera also performed very well on our last safari in Tanzania with plenty of dust, which was removed everyday by washing the camera under running water. A slight minus point is the limited battery life of about 150 – 200 exposures, but with the prices for batteries coming down all the time we always carry a spare battery – in the case of the Olympus, a very small one.

TORCHES -
When asked what makes for a good torch, the answer surely must be that it works under any circumstances and after a long time being stored away. This is probably the most common failure of torches – not being used for a long time and at that critical moment when one needs one the battery is down. Petzl has come out with a new head torch called e+lite, an extremely small and light head torch with several settings from dim light over bright light to a white and red flashing light. The life of the 2 Lithium Ion batteries is stated as 10 years on stand-by. We only have the torch since December so we cannot comment on that, but will come back with the result in 2017. The torch comes in its own waterproof canister and each car or backpack should have one.

Joerg