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Preparing for Winter - Part 1

It's nearly time for the white stuff and I had one or two things that required some tweaking. PTC* had been talking to me about winter wildcamp adventures which had me anxious as I knew my current sleeping set up wasn't good enough for freezing cold snowy nights. I recently got a lovely Thermasrest Neoair and was very impressed with how comfy and warm I was using it with my Marmot Helium on my wild camp back in September compared to when I had used my Thermarest Prolte 4 (now Prolite Plus). This new combo still wasn't going to get me through a winter summit camp.

Over coffee & cake much discussion was had with PTC*and Bobinson where we came to the conclusion that yes it was a very good idea that I had ordered some toasty phd down booties which would compliment my phd Yukon and that what I need to look at was the purchase of a second sleeping bag to double up with. As discussion continued it progressed to me asking if the boys had been at the new Decathlon which had opened in Glasgow's East End. Before I knew it we were in the vehicles heading east.

Decathlon is a store that I was used to from my time in London, so I was well aware of the potential bargains to be had, especially with their own brand stuff. We all wandered round poking & prodding lots of stuff. A couple of things caught my eye. An inflatable sit mat for £4.85 - all 78g




I then came across these Bionnassey trousers which looked like they could be a bargain at £39.95. In essence they reminded me of my favorite Patagonia Alpine Guide Pants, made of some heavy duty scholler with nice thigh vents with mesh, removable internal gaiters and braces. They were tried on. The fit was good and the leg length. I felt another item about to be purchased. Then I spotted that there was a bit of a price difference between the mens & womens - they had the cheek to be charging £10 more for the womens version AND it had a pocket less than the mens!! I was not a happy blonde. I sourced out a person from the mountaineering department who could find no reason for the price difference but could not price match to the mens so I wasn't buying them out of principle until they were the same price. He had emailed London to investigate and the price would be sorted but not then so no sale today on this item.

Next item to get my interest was this very brightly coloured sleeping bag. This might be suitable for my doubling up for winter. At a stated weight of 640g that would be a reasonable weight to carry. It had a temp rating of 15C but looked very flimsy. I had to test it for warmth ;-) PTC's hands were shaky due to laughing taking this photo, sorry for the blurriness but you get the idea. Another item purchased :-)





We had to get out of there before I bought any more but one more thing caught our eye, something that may help keep th heat in the Neoair. This emergency blanket thing was examined by PTC* and myself and we decided there was enough for a half each to play with.

Enough money spent. Time to leave the building.......
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Comments

  1. PTC18 November 2009 at 22:53

    I have one of those bottles :o)

    The trouser scandal will rumble on. I'm looking forward to the official "reason" for the wummin mark-up.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Metric Kate18 November 2009 at 23:06

    Are you sure that's a 'sit-mat' and not a pile cushion?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Elaina19 November 2009 at 00:23

    PTC - They have changed the price to the same as the mens on the website but I am still waiting on my phone call explaining it

    LOL Kate :-) I don't care as it seems very comfy so far

    ReplyDelete
  4. BG!21 November 2009 at 19:12

    Hi TBW

    We went over to Nottingham Decathlon today and had a look at those Bionassay trews. They looked fine and functional, and fit well, so I liberated a pair. The £10 price-differential was in force there as well, so I sent the Store Mangler off to check the web-prices. She seemed genuinely shocked and apologetic.

    Just one thing - ALWAYS check your receipt at the till. Decathlon have a habit of showing discounted prices on the goods and on the racks, but not updating the barcode-database, consequently at the till you get charged the full whack if you're not vigilant. It happened again today - we bought Ella some proper trainers for her boxing, reduced from £34.95 to £15.00, but the barcode still wanted the full price.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Elaina21 November 2009 at 22:36

    I really hate it when big companies like Decathlon can't get the prices right.They've really no excuse. Glad you got a result BG with the price thing.
    I suspect that part of my failure was due to the fact that the staff are so green they've no idea what to do & the manager wasn't about for me to give an earbashing to.
    I shall however make a point of sourcing him/her out on my next visit.
    Let me know when you've had an outing with the troos and how they performed

    ReplyDelete
  6. BG!21 November 2009 at 22:54

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  7. BG!21 November 2009 at 22:55

    "Let me know when you've had an outing with the troos and how they performed"

    Wilco, but it'll be a while - they're to be a Chrismas pressie, so I won't be able to claim them until the Big Day.

    It's been a good week for gear-buying, what with the Mantas and a few other cheap bits from TKMaxx.

    Thanks for the heads-up about the trews.

    ReplyDelete

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