Sirima Svastisalee's Page

With winter many climbers, hikers, and backpackers tend to get out of shape and gain weight.  The cold doesn’t have to get in the way of fun, as long as you follow some basic winter camping and survival principles the snow can be your friend.   Here’s 10 tips for a fun and safe winter trip outdoors.

1.  Clothing – This is your first line of defense against the environment and one of the most important factors.  Focus on layering.  Start with a good base layer (long underwear…

Last Thursday May 15^th all four major US . carriers, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint have started offering text to 911 in some states.   Text to 911 is the ability of a mobile phone or device to reach emergency services by texting a message.   The main use cases are when a person can’t speak, hear, or need to call for help in a stealthy mode.  The main benefit for outdoor enthusiasts is to get through to 911 in areas of…

A home rock climbing wall is a great way to focus on your strength training and climbing skills.  A few years ago we built a new shed and we had the idea of building a climbing wall on 2 sides in lieu of siding.   We were on a budget and wanted to keep it under a $200.  We also wanted a wall that we could use, find challenging, and our 1 year old would find challenging as he…

For 2011 there’s a new Avalanche Danger scale put out by the USDA Forest Service National Avalanche Center and Parks Canada.  The new scale reduces some of the uncertainty of the preceding scale, provides more authoritative avalanche safety advice for backcountry travelers, skiers, climbers, and snowmobilers.  The new scale incorporates risk by referring to typical avalanche sizes expected, and utilizes icons recently adopted by European countries.

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