Happy New Year! Leaving for EU, Packing for European Travel

Happy New Year everyone! I’m driving over the hill this morning to Boulder, Colorado where I’ll visit Dynafit’s North American contingent. They’re taking the day off for the first time in ages so I’ll try not to be too much of a bother, but it’ll be good to connect in person. More, I’ll immediately get an extensive take on what’s new in the Dynafit world for 2008, so I’ll be better prepared for blogging when I get hit with the full slam in a few days in Munich.

Speaking of which, I’ll be flying out of Denver tomorrow morning and landing in Europe about a day later. Blog plan is to do a travelogue like last year, along with plenty of writing about what’s new at Dynafit. This’ll be practice for a return trip in March, when we’ll be visiting a bunch of well known equipment makers such as Garmont, Scarpa and Trab (We do like Dynafit here, but need to be careful we don’t ignore everyone else — they all seem to like being mentioned on WildSnow!).

As always, packing for a 2-week EU trip has been interesting. I got two medium sized luggage pieces so I can easily keep each under the 50 pound limit and have them pack nicely. They hook up so they’ll roll around together. Tried to limit the amount of junk. But with a trip this length it’s impossible to know if the weather will be super cold or balmy, so you have to have a range of mountaineering clothing. For example, if weather is dry and cold I like carrying a super light down puffy, but if it’s wetter and warmer I’d rather have all synthetic. Oh well, as long as I can keep the total under 100 pounds I’ll just keep throwing stuff in. Two pounds of Cytomax and a dozen Cliff Bars rounds out the mix.

For carryon I got a small backpack at Wallyworld that’s designed to carry a notebook computer. I’m sick of lugging a heavy shoulder bag around the airport — it’ll be nice to just shoulder a small pack. I’ll also carry on my ski boots as they’re the only thing that would be hard to replace if my luggage got lost, since they’re custom fitted and all. I’m not looking forward to carrying the glowing fluorescent green Zzeros around the airport, oh well, the things we do in the name of alpinism. At least the boots are light when slung around the neck.

11 Responses to “Happy New Year! Leaving for EU, Packing for European Travel”

1. FrameNZ January 1st, 2008 8:16 am

   Lou, I think you said a while back you have a bit of trouble with jet lag / time zone changes. I try to sleep as much as possible on the plane, not easy at 6 and a half feet but get an eye mask, some ear plugs and consider picking up some sleeping tablets – I’ve used some non prescription ones and am sure they help a bit. I also have a theory on red wine helping the sleep with the added benefit of thinning the blood a little, which helps prevent any blot clots. Not sure you’ll find this in any medical journals…
   Have fun in Austria and enjoy the apple strudel.

2. scottyb January 1st, 2008 8:33 am

   Keep the power vids coming, we are currently in a powder drought back east here.

   Looking forward to Dynafit info as I am looking to upgrade to an AT setup in the future.

3. Lou January 1st, 2008 8:51 am

   Frame, thanks, I’ll be trying the sleep method. Last time I tried skipping sleeping on the theory that I’d be so sleep deprived I could lock right in to the new sleep schedule, but that didn’t work so well as I had to participate in life once I got there, and doing so without sleep was pretty bad. I guess everyone is different and you have to figure out your own best method. Some folks I know just party till they drop and that takes care of it (grin).

4. brett January 1st, 2008 11:46 am

   Any idea on what kind of video camera that was?

5. Louie Dawson January 1st, 2008 12:51 pm

   Brett

   I don’t know what kind of camera Lynn was using, but we have been testing a Gopro digital hero 3. It works pretty good and since you don’t have to connect it to a camcorder you can put it anywhere.

6. thomas January 1st, 2008 3:16 pm

   your going to europe and packing cliff bars? Fresh cheese ,fresh bread, locally made sausage abound in them thar’ hills!!!
   Have fun, tell them we want to see the TLT around for ever…

7. Lynn January 1st, 2008 4:30 pm

   Brett, the helmet cam is a blackeye and the video cam is a canon ZR700. The blackeye connects via an av port on the video camera, have to deal with a cord running into your pack. So far it is working well.

   It mounts to helmet or head via a headband, so the line of sight is pretty much just above eye level, nothing sticking up above the head to get clipped off by a branch etc.

   You can see some additional helmet footage at
   http://jaywalkerlodge.com/program/treatment-program-expeditions.html

8. Lou January 1st, 2008 5:12 pm

   Thomas, it’s just a few Cliff Bars (grin), heck, perhaps they’ll advertise!

9. Njord January 1st, 2008 6:04 pm

   I concur with the sleep program…. I use a mix of prescription drugs, redbull, alcohol, alcohol with redbull, and sleeping mask when I go globe trotting (moving forward 11 hours next week). It’s always better to get “too much” sleep, than trying to stay awake… it’s harder to trick your system!

   Njord

10. Andrew January 1st, 2008 8:36 pm

    I like the soundtrack Lou – “He was a hard headed man, he was brutally handsome.” I guess powder skiing will do that to you! 🙂

11. Lou January 1st, 2008 11:00 pm

    No more sleep deprivation, that’s my motto!