Osprey Switch 26 review

(Cross posted to snow hugger)

Skiing with a backpack may be a foreign concept to some people, but it's really quite useful. In the backcountry, it's essential for carrying avalanche gear, food, extra layers, maps, and various other gear. I don't bring a back with me as much when I'm skiing in-area, but they're very useful there too. I usually pack at least some water and lunch to save myself from the wallet destroying ski cafeteria food prices.

The past couple years I've been skiing around with various backpacks that weren't designed for ski use. They get the job done but not typically in the most graceful fashion, so I decided to do some ski backpacking shopping this season. As with most gear purchases, I spent way too much time reading about and looking at various packs before I settled on the Osprey Switch 26.

Thumbs up to The North Face

I bought a North Face jacket at the REI garage sale. As with most items at the garage sales, it's there because there is some issue, and in the case of my jacket the problem was a broken zipper pull. (Normally not a big deal anyway, but the way it was broken precluded the usual fix of looping a key ring through the zipper.) The jacket was brand new and half price due to the blemish, so I decided to buy it.

I then promptly sent it to the North Face for repair. I wasn't entirely sure if it would be covered under their warranty (since it was sold as a second), but I thought it was worth the shot. Even if they charged me I figure it would be pretty minimal and worth if for the good deal I got on the jacket.

Last week I got my jacket back with the following note:

We are sorry. But this shell jacket is marked as a second. It was sold "as is" and is not covered under The North Face warranty.

Bummer. I thought they had just sent it back to me unrepaired. But wait, there's more:

But we will repair it free of charge as a special service
--The North Face Warranty Department

Nice! Thanks TNF for standing by your gear.

I-70

I left my house in Fort Collins at 5AM on Sunday to meet up with an out of town friend who was staying at Breckenridge. Rolling out of bed that early is a drag, but I made it all the way to Breck in just over 2 hours. Clear roads; no traffic; life was good.

Coming home, on the other hand, was a huge drag. I know better than to leave Summit County at 3:30 on a Sunday, but for some reason I decided to do it anyway. It took me as long to get to the east side of the Eisenhower tunnel as my entire drive in the morning. Ugh! In total, it was a 4.5 hour trip. There were no big accidents (that I know of), but the road just isn't able to handle the volume of traffic.

Heading west on I-70, once you pass the Dillon exit you are stuck on the highway. There's no other exits or turnaround points between there and the tunnel. If they decide to close the tunnel temporarily, you're stuck in a big parking lot. Inevitably, the traffic flows smoothly until you pass that point of no return. If there we some way to turn around, I bet the businesses in Dillon would see a huge increase in business. I know that if I had the choice between sitting in traffic and eating dinner in Dillon, I'd choose the latter.

The traffic on I-70 is hands down the number one reason I haven't purchased a ski pass for the past few years. Hopefully the ski resorts and towns can get creative and find solutions to the traffic problems. It's in their best financial interest. I wish I had some pearls of wisdom I could give to the CDOT and the ski industry to solve this problem, but I just don't know what to do. If I may paraphrase War Games, the only correct move is not to play.

Can Throwing

Apparently this is a YouTube classic that I've missed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prIXZqy-ie4

It's supposedly done without special effects (but with a lot of re-takes).

(And since I'm also on YouTube, I also just saw this Live Action Hamster Video Game. I don't know why it makes me laugh but it does.)

*updated 1/31: The hamster video moved, so I updated the link*

Working remotely

Christine is off to Paris on Saturday for 6 weeks. (Feel free to invite me out to beat my boredom.)

I just got approval from my boss to "work" remotely from Paris for a week. :) I think I'm going to go sometime in the middle of February.

Hey mom: Not that I'm trying to compete, but that's 3 trips to France in the past 3 years.

Organic Foods

I'll follow up yesterday's hippie post with this one about organic foods.

Go to http://www.foodnews.org/ and download their Shopper's Guide to Pesticides. You can't always find organic produce, so they've created a list of the produce that contains the most and least pesticides so you know which ones are safer when organic isn't available. From their site:

Why Should You Care About Pesticides?

There is growing consensus in the scientific community that small doses of pesticides and other chemicals can adversely affect people, especially during vulnerable periods of fetal development and childhood when exposures can have long lasting effects. Because the toxic effects of pesticides are worrisome, not well understood, or in some cases completely unstudied, shoppers are wise to minimize exposure to pesticides whenever possible.

Hippie bags

We have a large collection of plastic grocery bags at our house. I normally don't feel too bad that we're wasting all that plastic because we save them for re-use on dog walks (I'll spare you the details), but we realistically we have enough bags for a years worth of dog walks right now. Every time we do our weekly shop we end up with probably 10 more bags, and if we walk the dog once a day that leaves us with an increasing amount of bags in storage. Eventually I fear that they will take over the house.

A while ago Christine bought some cloth bags from the Vitamin Cottage, and they've been hanging by our door waiting for us to not forget them when we go to the store. I can't tell you how many times I walk by them on my way to the grocery store and forget to grab them. Last night I managed to remember (only because I pulled a plastic dog walking bag out of my pocket on the way out the door).

With our 3 reusable bags we were able to carry all of our week's groceries, which would have easily taken 10 plastic bags. Not only was it great not to stuff a bunch more bags into another cranny in the house, but it only took one trip to get all of the groceries into the house. It's really a win all around.