Equipment – end of season tidy-up

Date first posted on eCommunity - 22 April 2007

Most years I get home from the last ski trip of the season and straightaway throw all my kit into the garage, promising myself I'll get around to sorting it out "very soon". And there it will lie untouched until the approach of Christmas provokes a panic. But this season – I'm getting old – I had most of it sorted away within a few days of arriving home. Here is a list of the jobs that needed doing.

SKIS
I like to base-wax my skis before the summer lay-off. I can do this at home, but I'm not especially well set-up for it here and this year I managed to do it during my last trip to Norway. The hotel we were staying at (in Høvringen) had a warmed ski-hut equipped with
waxing bench and iron. In my ski bag I found some old racing base-wax, a relic from a past Engadin marathon and therefore a bit incongruous when dripped on to my mountain skis; but the main thing at this time of year is just to get some kind (any kind) of wax into the bases, so I was happy to use it. The hot-wax job took me about an hour. Then after a quick check of the bindings the skis were ready to go into the ski-bag – except that the ski-bag was torn.
 

SKI-BAG
One day I'll get around properly to reinforcing the ends of my ski-bags, which are invariably the sections that get damaged. For now I've used Duck tape. If this starts to curl up I'll try to stick it with Seam-Grip.

BOOTS
I've used only my touring boots this season – no time for track skiing this year. They are made from leather, and before putting them away for the summer I applied a generous layer of Nikwax – both inside and out.

POLES
When skiing off-track I use Swix Mountain poles. I saw three such poles fail this season, all breaking at the basket. So I took extra care to Nikwax the leather basket-straps (as well as the hand-straps) before storing mine.

CLIMBING SKINS
My skins got a lot of use this year. So an application of Coll Tex glue was in order before they went into the cupboard.

WAXES
I cleaned all the tubs with solvent, and did my scrapers while I had the solvent out. I put all the partly-used klister tubes into sealable plastic bags. I then packed the lot away in my waxing box.

RUCKSACK
When travelling by air I always tie up my main rucksack in a swathe of rock-climbing tape before entrusting it to the baggage handlers. This certainly impedes their remorseless, unswerving mission to reduce it to tatters – but they still nevertheless manage every time
to burst at least one of the plastic strap-buckles. That wouldn't be such a problem if I could find replacements that were compatible with the originals. Then I could just renew the half of the buckle that was broken; and usually the half that gets broken is the "male" half, which you replace simply by threading a new one on to the loose webbing.

But I always have to fit a complete new buckle – which means replacing the "female" half as well. Doing that properly would be impossibly fiddly, as I would have to unpick maybe half a metre of stitching in the webbing, and then sew it all back up afterwards. Life is just too short.

However there is a workaround. What you have to do is take the end of the female half of the buckle – the end that you would have looped into the webbing if you could have been bothered to unpick it all – and then cut through its plastic bar at about 45 degrees, so that you can slide it on to the webbing. You need a hacksaw and a soft vice. And you need a lot of care; otherwise you'll break the buckle and cut off your finger. It helps if you make the cut a
little to one side of the centre of the plastic bar: this will make it easier to slide it into the loop of webbing.

SPARE PARTS AND HANDY THINGS
While out skiing most of us have all sorts of brainwaves - about things we should have remembered to bring or inventions we could surely patent. (The waxable loipe is just not feasible – forget it.) It is useful to put together a little box of bits and pieces now - before your memories fade.   Into my own box this season will go:

- One or two PRECUT plastic buckles, as described above.
- Some re-usable cable-ties, for running repairs to kit. I think I can get them in B&Q.
- Two spare Swix baskets. (I bought a pair in the general store in Høvringen.)
- Spare climbing skins (I will make a spare "pair" from two unmatched old, broken ones I have lying around).
- A couple of miniature bottles – the kind the airlines give you for your inflight vodka-martini. They are good for holding small quantities of wax-removing solvent, and for shampoo, especially if you are on a moving-along tour. (It is of course quite a good idea to re-label the bottles accordingly. . .)
 

S. Montgomery, for XCuk

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