One thing I particularly appreciated about my snowboarding holiday was my snowboarding gear. I felt I could rely on it. The last thing you want on a holiday like that is to have sore feet or cold hands or to feel that your snowboard isn’t right for you.
Snowboarding is a mind game and if you don’t trust your equipment, you lose your mojo.
So a hymn of praise to the equipment:
Boots: Salomon (Fusion). Off-white. Kind of made me feel like a storm-trooper. Quite thin soles which mean good control, but in extreme cold not so good for keeping your feet warm. They have the lace toggle thingy which means you don’t need to tie your laces, you just pull the toggle. (Not entirely convinced of the benefit of the toggle thingy but my lace-tying friends thought it looked like a good idea.) On steep slopes my heels lifted a bit, so I think next time I may need thicker socks or some extra thingies toput inside the boots to stop my heel from lifting.
Jacket: Westbeach. 6000 mm waterproof, 6000mvt breathability. Integrated hand-warmers, powder skirt, detachable hood. The skirt is good for stopping snow getting inside when you do a face-plant, and better still you can take it off for normal around-town activity. I bought it last year and didn’t do any snowboarding last year so didn’t really bond with the new jacket and wasn’t sure I liked it. But now I’m sure. Its good, its warm and I like the design.
Base Layer: HH thermal leggings and a merino t-shirt. Merino is lovely and soft, and you can wear it forever without (hardly) washing it at all. All hail the base layer, for lo it was good.
Tops: a Ronhill v-neck T-shirt (made of polyamide, plus 8% lycra) and a fleece jumper. No cotton, no sirree. Once you’ve gone over to dry-flow stuff there’s no going back. A good number of layers that I could remove, but generally didn’t remove any layers and didn’t feel the need for any extra.
Trousers: Trespass. Waterproof, breathable, warm. Designed for age 13/14 but did me very well.
Goggles: Trespass. Anti-fog double lens UV400. I bought them in a hurry. They’re bright pink. The colour is a bit on the garish side but quite fun. And the anti-fog really truly works. My old goggles were really poor by comparison. These never misted at all.
Gloves: O’Neill. Inner fleece lining, outer is waterproof. A good size, reasonably easy to take on and off, and best of all, warm.
Winter buff: I used to think buffs were overpriced. I still think they’re over-priced, but they’re absolutely indispensable. I love mine. It keeps you warm and stops snow getting down your neck (and unlike a scarf, can’t blow away) and you can pull it up over your face and under your goggles, keeping your entire face covered. In the cold this makes a huge difference to your comfort, particularly if its windy or snowing.
Snowboard: I hired a snowboard when I got there. It was “Head” brand “Concept” board, 24.6 * 135. Seemed flexible to me in a good way, it didn’t get in a fluster when I pointed it into steep snowy ditches, it just flexed itself and came straight out again. No fuss. I’m just getting into doing small jumps and it was very co-operative there too.
