SierraDescents.com

Baldy Bowl is Bare

Bummer!

Posted in Current Conditions | 3 Comments

Exped DownMat 7

Yes, there is down (as in feathers) in Exped’s DownMat-series sleeping pads, which include the DownMat 7 and the DownMat 9, in lengths from short to long.

Putting feathers inside your sleeping pad may sound a little strange, but it works out to have exactly the same effect as putting feathers in your jacket: it makes it warmer without making it heavier (more…)

Posted in Gear | 0 Comments

Of Lightness and Darkness

This it seems to me is the ultimate tribute to Kim Jong Il, the recently departed Dear Leader of North Korea—a satellite image of North Korea at Night.

Ezra Klein writes: “That, right there, is Kim Jong Il’s legacy. In a world that had long ago found light, he managed to keep 24 million human beings in the dark.”

Posted in Musings | 0 Comments

The Return of the Quiver

In the good old days you needed two or three pairs of skis, depending on how serious you wanted to be on the race course. You would either tilt GS or Slalom, and ride those as your go-to board, and then typically you’d keep an old pair as rock skis for the early season, and those rock skis usually doubled as your powder skis, because they’d soften up over time and get sweeter in the deep (more…)

Posted in Gear | 7 Comments

Skyrim

How good is Bethesda Studios’ new role-playing game, Skyrim? It’s so good I’m afraid to open the box.

That’s right, instead of opening it up and loading it on my machine, when UPS delivered my copy I instead carefully wrapped the box in Christmas paper and put a label on it saying To Andy from Santa (more…)

Posted in Musings | 0 Comments

Canon XF100

I understand that Canon’s XF100 is currently one of the very hottest items in the compact professional camcorder market, and I understand why.

But to my eye, the XF100 is compromised by the inescapable limitations of its sensor, and that compromise overshadows the XF100′s otherwise-outstanding features. What’s good about the Canon XF100? Well, it’s hard to know where to begin (more…)

Posted in Gear | 1 Comment

Dressing High vs. Low

One of the things I pride myself on is belated insight—meaning, I do have good ideas, but they tend to occur to me a little bit late.

That was definitely the case going up the Mount Whitney Trail last weekend. We knew we’d be facing weather somewhere between 0-20°F, and we knew we’d be climbing fast (more…)

Posted in Musings | 1 Comment

Scarpa Charmoz GTX

Scarpa’s Charmoz GTX is a light Alpine/Mountaineering boot in the same class as the very popular La Sportiva Trango S EVO.

On my scale the two boots are almost identical. The Charmoz weighs three pounds, five ounces per pair (size 42.5), exactly 0.5 ounces lighter than the Trango S. Both boots are lightly insulated, waterproof (more…)

Posted in Gear | 0 Comments

Mount Muir Panorama

A very chilly December day atop 14,012′ Mount Muir, enjoying the hair-raising exposure off the summit block.

I wanted to get some photos of Muir and Trevor wanted to check Muir off his list, so we teamed up for an unexpectedly long day via the Mount Whitney trail and the West Face (more…)

Posted in video | 3 Comments

Sony NEX-5N

Sony’s next-generation NEX-5N looks pretty much the same as its immediate predecessor, the intriguing NEX-5A, but there the similarities end.

The NEX-5N is in many ways the realization of the potential that the 5A could only hint at. The camera is capable of simply staggering image quality, no longer approaching DSLR quality but rather (more…)

Posted in Gear | 2 Comments

Previous Posts »

« Newer Entries