Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Jetboil camping stoves look the business

I'm very happy with my normal gas camping stove, but Trail magazine keep going on and on about these Jetboil stoves. The idea is simple - an all in one personal gas stove and pot system that cooks things really quickly. It packs small and is lightweight. It looks great, and apparently sounds like a jet aircraft taking off when you get it torqued up. It must be be ideal when you want to stop for a fresh brew, or boil up some minute noodles, but I wonder just how well you could control scrambled eggs or simmer something that needs cooking for a little longer. I'd love to try one just to see how well they work. They cost about £65 though, so it might be a while before I get round to it.

The jetboil website

Posted by bigcrags @ 12:57 PM 1 comments

Friday, March 25, 2005
New blog location

After months of languishing on slow blogspot servers, we've finally moved the OutdoorScotland.co.uk outdoors gear blog right here. Now we can make it look prettier too. Thanks for visiting.
www.outdoorscotland.co.uk/blog/

Posted by bigcrags @ 8:12 AM 0 comments

Thursday, March 24, 2005
Footbeds sorbothane, superfeet etc

I was recently asked about footbeds for hiking boots. Now we don't sell them at outdoorscotland.co.uk, purely because we don't like the idea of selling footwear online without people having tried them on. But I do have an interest in this after years of having knee pain and sore back and shoulders after a long walk.

The first footbeds I tried in my hiking boots other than the manufacturers original footbeds were called Cush'n'step or something similar. They cost me about a fiver and looked for all intents like the more expensive models. Well, they were comfy and soaked up a bit of shock but really didn't live up to the punishment I gave them.

So I shelled out around £20 and got myself a pair of Sorbothane Shockstoppers and they rock. Knee pain has all but gone, tired back pain is eradicated and I'm a happy camper at the end of the day. In fact I used to get a lot of blisters under the ball of my foot as well and these are much less prevalent with the shockstoppers installed.

So for me, sorbo's were the end of the road, but some people need a little more from their footbed, and they can get it from Superfeet. Superfeet make customised insoles personalised to your boots and your feet. This is about as good as you can get in footbeds. Hope they help.

Posted by bigcrags @ 1:22 PM 2 comments

Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Bennybeg, again

Hardly had time to breathe, let alone blog recently. Time to take a step back I think, and maybe a holiday. Anyway - nice to see Kev Howett along at Bennybeg on Saturday. Teaching a young man to lead on one of the routes (son?). Bennybeg by Crieff is such a good and safe place (bolted) to teach youngsters the ropes, so to speak, it's a wonder there are any indoor climbing walls in Scotland at all.

Posted by bigcrags @ 4:15 PM 0 comments

Friday, March 04, 2005
Friday already - the weekend starts here

After a week of nose to the grindstone work again, I can't believe it's friday already. I promised myself I'd update the camping shop this weekend with a new range of led torches that we are ordering. Fantastic torches from Mellert as it happens - German technology. They don't come cheap, but they are brilliant.

Anyway I checked the Cairngorm webcam at Glenmore Lodge this morning and it would appear there has been a rather large dump of snow this week. This is something I've learned not to hope for as in Crieff it never snows. It totally passed me by, and through my work addled haze, I can vaguely remember seeing stories of army trucks ferrying people to work who couldn't drive in snow. I think I filed that as a bad dream - I mean, who doesn't love driving in snow. Sideways driving is the business. You pay big money to do it on a skidpan and in winter you get to do it for free.

So what's the plan for the weekend - well my skiing partner is off to Sudan tomorrow, minus his ski boots, so it looks like I'll be mastering that telemark turn on my own. It's about time I get my bindings on to my new skis, so that might be a job for this afternoon, if only I knew how to do it. Craigdon offered to do it for 20 quid, but that's 20 quid I'd rather spend going somewhere, so I'll probably do a half arsed job myself and ruin the skis in the process.

Either way I think I've woken up and smelled the snow so I'm sure this weekend will be full of gravity assisted minimum friction motion.
Happy sliding...

Posted by bigcrags @ 10:45 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Thanks to The Bagger

Had a real surprise at the weekend when I logged into my favourite hillwalking blog at www.thebagger.co.uk to find this blog and our wee store mentioned in the friday update.

I've been reading The Bagger for some time now and really enjoy it.

Just wanted to say thanks to Bagger and to add a link back incase any of you have not come across their blog. As soon as I work out how to add permanent links on the right hand side of this template I'll do that too.

Posted by bigcrags @ 9:56 AM 0 comments

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