Random fun stuff
By Cam Burns |
Blinded by the light
There’s nothing worse than getting up in the middle of the night to go do something Pagan only to find that your headlamp is so dull it can’t light up an exit route out of the bus shelter. Sure, the new breed of LED headlamps is getting better, slowly, but if you really wanna blast your homies under the Dotsero bridge at 2 a.m., check out New Option Lighting’s line of lamps. These lights — boasting a multitude of LED bulbs and capable of illuminating an entire underpass — and its grumpy residents — are worthy of a serious look, simply because they’re so dern light (weight-wise, that is). The EL-6 Compact Everlite (the one we tested) is a nice little and super lightweight (at about 8 ounces) lamp that not only runs on solar energy, it comes, as do all New Option lamps, with its own lightweight (about 13 ounces) 5X5- inch solar panel. The advertising kit claimed 6 hours of sunlight charging equals 12 hours worth of "brilliant white light." (I charged up my lamp and got more than 48 hours of non-stop illumination.)
Clearly, the lamp can be taken on an overnight or several-night trip without the solar panel — the charge is that good. It’s in "expeditioning" (a.k.a. loading up your shopping cart and traversing Grand Junction over the course of a winter), though, where I think this light will really make its mark. I can count at least a dozen impromptu bivouacs where this product would’ve, as the Guinness guys say, been brilliant. Price: $60. For more info, see www.newlite.com. Watch for New Option’s soon-to-be-released EL7 Mini EverLite. It weighs 5 ounces, including solar panel, provides about half the light compared with the Compact, runs 12 hours from 6 hours of sun, and comes with outdoor-rated Velcro sticky pads, so you can mount the Mini on a favorite baseball hat and have a headlamp, or on the inside of your tent, or almost anywhere ($40).
M-Rock camera bags
I’ve never really been much of a bag man, but living with my wife Frusilla these past 90 years has made me appreciate the incredible variety of things a plastic grocery bag is capable of holding: from several screaming children to a party’s worth of paraphernalia. In the ’60s, I even started using them to carry camera gear i(they’re perfect for cheap disposable Ph.D cameras)*.
Anyway, a few years back a company called MRock arrived on the scene and quickly diverted my attention from plastic grocery bags. These bags are tops in quality and innovation. A vast number of handy tabs (and two firm straps) let you strap the bags to a person, an animal or something else in just about any configuration, and the correctly placed padding ensures your camera gear is safe (I like to attach mine to Fido for a bit of non-PETAsanctioned fun). I’ve been a Grand Canyon man for awhile now (a bigger model that easily handles 100 ounces), but MRock’s newest bags are its High Sierra and Everglade ($48 and $100, respectively) — perfect for novice bag men who dream of going pro. Bottom line: Some of the best camera bags you’ll ever encounter. I say, just bag it. For more information on M-Rock, visit www.m-rock.com.
More hot air
This is one of the more interesting bits of “gear” I’ve seen marketed in the category of “outdoors,” but since the Schmear tends toward the offkilter things, here we go. A 3- footlong, sturdy steel tube modeled after a rifle barrel (at 1.5 pounds, you might not carry this into the backcountry, but you might take it car camping), the Fire Dragon (distributed by Mango International) is designed for getting campfires started or revived. “During the Civil War, soldiers would start their campfires in damp and windy conditions by blowing through their gun barrels into the heart of the fire,” notes a Mango press release. Embellished with a brass mouthpiece (like your old French horn), the Fire Dragon uses the Venturi system to direct a blast of air where needed. No chemicals, no liquid fuels. Comes with log-turning prongs on the business end (works as a back-scratcher, too). Just blow and go, so to speak. Dress up like you’re going to knock over a 7-Eleven, and you can really have some fun scaring the neighbors. (Price: $30). See www.mangointernational.biz.
Arborwear
Now to my favorite product this month — Arborwear. Arborwear is an Ohio firm that makes rugged canvas clothes (reminiscent of Kavu and Carhartt gear), notably shirts, jackets and pants, for "tree climbers" … or at least that’s the angle of Arborwear’s marketing. Arborwear Head Monkey (CEO) Paul Taylor describes his “britches” as “kick ash,” with which I’d have to agree. I’m hooked on Paul’s pants now, and so is my wife. In fact, I can’t seem to get her out of Paul’s pants — a very discouraging situation, though she does look like a dreamy forest-nymph in her Arborwear (can you say woody or are you just glad to see me?). So, is the stuff good for tree climbing? I aimed Frusilla at the west face of a slumped-over juniper near our dumpster and she scrambled up it faster than you can ask: "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck?" (The treeclimbing Yves St. Laurent and Gucci wear we simultaneously sampled had us yelling “timber” immediately; Arborwear was a clearcut winner when it comes to getting up big wooden things.) “Original Tree Climber’s” pants run $54.95; Arborwear also makes “Original Tree Climber’s” shirts, shorts, jackets and belts. Oh, and check out their T-shirts, which are a real value for the dollar (they come with holes for your head and arms to stick out). I’d buy a few of each product if Fayhee didn’t pay me in dog food. See www.arborwear.com (an especially entertaining website that’s worth the effort of "logging" on).
Cam Burns is an author, climber, skier, and selfdescribed gear junkie. Not that Mountain Gazette is incestuous or anything, but Burns’ latest book, “Postcards from the Trailer Park,” was recently released by Lyons Press. Burns can be reached at jonathonhemlock@ hotmail.com.
