Poor Mans Heli

…and all the verbal pro blogzillas were at the show, checking out the new gear, while us linguistically challenged blogapers stay home and read their prose. A few new gadgets and doohickeys to enhance your mountain douchebaggery are below.

The Ortovox 3+ transceiver
Yes, I’m not kidding, someone in the blogosphere wrote about something that’s NOT the Apple tablet this week. At first glance you’re going to think Pieps Freeride. While your hips may not lie your eyes do.

Ortovox 3+, love child of the Freeride and an iPod?

A few things that stood out to me:
-Single AA battery (this sucker is small, think iPhone-ish size)
-Upgradeable firmware (coming soon open source beacons with their own app store?)
-The beacon senses when you are buried (based on period of rest/inactivity and built in inclinometer) and turns off/on it’s internal antennae as it sees fit to maximize it’s signal acquisition range. Cool stuff, wonder if the sensors only work if you wear it in it’s harness, and hope the software works when you need it…
-Under $350

Enough blog-am commentary. To get the full pro-blogger rundown of the Ortovox 3+ check out Lou Dawson or Steve Romeo’s previews.

Petzl Core rechargable battery
This falls under the category of ‘things I’d probably never drop $40 on but I think it’s cool regardless’. Petzl has released a recharable battery that works with their current products and replaces up to 900 regular ol’ batteries (greenwash marketing? Do the chemicals used in a rechargeable + the power used to charge override the footprint of traditional batteries? *head explodes*) in it’s lifetime and comes with a host of charging options (USB, cigarette lighter, household plug and solar). If you’ve ever arrived at a trailhead and discovered that the batteries in your BD Moonlight are a bit dim and you don’t have enough replacements you’ll appreciate the variety of recharging options.

Petzl Core rechargeable battery

Skiers, there was all sorts of cool new touring boots, skis, etc. for you. Seriously check out the Wildsnow and TetonAT and check out all the goodness. If you’ve ever had the desire to drop half a paycheck on boots Garmont, Black Diamond et. al. are there for you in your time of need.

Splitboarders….well, once again you’ll be left checking the splitboard.com forums for DIY options to enhance your experience (yes, I realize people were climbing mountains in wool and whatnot 100+ years ago. Suck it and let me bitch). Thankfully there are guys like the enginerds at Spark, and I’m hopeful that Jeremy Jones’ street cred will translate into something new as well, but both of those operations lack the funding of the big guys that appear to only support homely gingers and those are firing up insanely hard/technical tricks that ultimately all look the same yet lack any style (c’mon, give me a Jamie Lynn method or an old school Brushie tweak any day) with names that sound like a Starbucks drink.