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Chamois at La Dôle

Byrichard
Reading Time: 2 minutes

When the weather is cold and grey as it is today people are not tempted by a walk in the mountains. Chamois at la Dôle are more relaxed, especially up at La Dôle. They are hidden by the clouds and if humans are coming then they will smell them long before we get to see them.

On Friday of last week we were lucky. With a friend we decided that we would eat lunch at La Barillette after going for a short walk up from the radio mast to the Sky Guide facilities above.

There was a light drizzle and the clouds were playing. At moments we could see the top and at other moments it was hidden by clouds. We walked up the path and saw a few cows spread about the landscape.

As we started up the steep path and arrived to where the path flattens we could see two or three chamois in the distance. I thought at first that it was just the mother I had seen several months earlier with her young one. As we approached and as the wind blew away some clouds we saw a full herd.

This was excellent. It is rare to see so many of them so close together like that and from such a short distance. At moments we were just metres away from them. It was a rare and welcome privilege.

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Day 51 Of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Only Two People At A Time

Day 51 Of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Only Two People At A Time

Byrichard

Today I went in to a shop without knowing that the limit was two people at a time. Paradoxically there were not two but five people in the shop because if you’re a parent with a child you’re allowed to be two, so there were four people. I saw no sign on the door because the door was open so I didn’t know. The shop in my village doesn’t have that rule.


It seems stupid to ignore the rule for two parents and their kids from separate families. I thought that I would walk my traditional summer route today but of course that was a mistake. A trio of three people from one family were walking lined up making it impossible for me to pass them without them entering my two metre exlusion zone so I waited by a petanque field for them to pass.


A girl and her mother were distracted doing something and the bike began to roll down a slope and I questioned, “How do I help without touching the bike. I thought of running and stopping it with my foot but as it gained momentum I ran out of time. It rolled into the road.


I was thinking “How can I help the mother walking with her children and I came to the conclusion that the safest part of the bike to grab and place it back on the pavement was the down tube. Saddles and handlebars are always touched but it’s unlikely that people, in normal circumstances would touch the down tube.


These are the things we need to think about during a pandemic. Helping someone as a spur of the moment thing is temporarily out of the question as a moment’s kindness could lead to tragedy, not that I expect either of us to be at high risk of catching the virus from each other. According to a recent article there were just 40 new contaminations yesterday. Now we’re even further into the long tail of the pandemic.


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Suunto and Sports tracker collaborate.
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Suunto and Sports tracker collaborate.

Byrichard

I have been using sports tracker for years. I first used it on the Nokia N95 8GB several years ago. This was an excellent app that allowed you to track your moves using the mobile phone as a GPS. The limitation of such an app was battery life on mobile phones. The battery usually did not last more than an hour at first and eventually progressed to two hours or more.

The first Suunto Device I used was for diving. I used the Suunto D9 dive computer for many months before upgrading. As I satisfied with this device I bought the Suunto Ambit 2 and eventually the Suunto Ambit 3. The reason for buying these watches is battery life. As normal watches they can last for 100 days, losing about one percent a day. If you use them as fitness watches then they easily last for a day or more.

When you’re doing via Ferrata, hiking, cycling or doing other sports you want the device you use to track your fitness efforts for as long as you’re going. That’s where Sports trackers and other mobile phones had their weakness. Mobile phone apps sometimes crash. If you’re pushing yourself hard during a workout you do not want to reach the end of a workout with no data.

Another frustration I often encountered was with Movescount, Suunto’s social sports app. At the end of quite a few workouts, I was unable to sync my workout data and analyse my progress. At the time,

I wanted to see Suunto and Sports tracker combined. They’re both Finnish companies and they both excel at specific tasks. Suunto for the hardware and Sports tracker for the analytics. By combining the two we have the best of both worlds.

Communications between Movescount and Sports tracker has been available for several weeks at this point and it works flawlessly. I have hiked, cycled, walked, sailed and climbed and each activity has synced without problems.

Thoughts on Large Watch Screens

Thoughts on Large Watch Screens

Byrichard

Today I played with an Apple Watch Ultra in a shopping centre and two thoughts came to mind. The first is that this is finally a calculator watch that is big enough for an adult to use. This is meant more as a joke than as a serious comment.


The second thought is that if they are not careful watch screens will become too big. The only iOS phone I can consider is the SE because the others are too large, and if they are not careful then watches too, will become too big. I don’t want such a large screen.


Apple seem to want to replace mac book laptops with ipads, ipads with mobile phone, and mobile phones with the Apple watch Ultra. Eventually Apple will go back to being a secondary brand. They have already split away from the four box mode. Cheap pro, expensive pro, cheap consumer, expensive consumer.


Remember, what made Apple stand out a few years ago is that we had four products to choose from. Now we have a dozen more choices. Apple is no longer as simple as before.


The Ultra is advertised as an adventure watch but I am more tempted by the PRT-B50 if I was going to get a watch. I like it’s simple functionality and how it ties in to the phone. It has a two year battery life instead of 30hrs.


If you want a dive watch then the Suunto D4, for 200 CHF will have the same usefulness as the ultra, but designed by dive pros. The Apple watch SE is 265 CHF, at the time when I quickly googled the watch.


For the price of an ultra watch you could get three or four specialist devices instead. I am not saying you should. I’m saying that for the quarter of the money you could choose a device that suits your needs better.


Am I trying to convince you or myself?


And Finally


Without giving a specific brand or watch you can get a GPS running tracker for 100 CHF rather than 800-1000. It will track running, cycling and more, but not hiking. For 100 CHF you can track your sports, and it’s 39mm wide, rather than 42, 44 or more. It fits comfortably, goes for 13hours, of sports tracking, in theory, and a week in normal mode otherwise.


My aim, in giving such suggestions, is not so much to help you save money, as to play with a number of devices, and see which ecosystem you like, or love most, and which one you think is lacking.


I use sports tracking watches one and a half hours to two hours a day seven days a week, three hundred and sixty five days a year. I want to keep track of what I do, and have complete data. I don’t need an 800 CHF watch, when a 100 CHF watch does what I want. I will write about that watch after I have played with it for a week or two, not before.

Walking Into Heavy Rain
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Walking Into Heavy Rain

Byrichard

Sometimes you end up walking into heavy rain. That’s what I did today. I looked at the weather and because it was meant to get better over the coming days I assumed that this evening it would get better. Instead, as I walked it started to rain a little more, and then a little harder, and eventually quite a bit harder. Did I get wet beyond the top layer? Nope, but my beanie got a little wet, as did my fleece. My shoes on the other hand were clean, thanks to the flow of water.


I was lucky today, because if I had set off a little later then I would have been soaked by the time I got home. I skirted the rain by an amusing amount. I could have been drenched if I had set off later. I timed my walk to avoid the sunset, so that would have helped me avoid the rain anyway. I don’t want to walk at night.


Today I walked over 18,000 steps, according to the Casio, 8800 in the morning, and another ten thousand in the evening. In the evening, as the rain started, I decided to run for one kilometre. I tracked it with the Garmin instinct and the Casio. There was no reason to track with both, except that I was curious to see the result. If you want running time step count and distance then the Casio GBD-200 is fine. If you want cadence, heart rate zones, and other data then keep with the Garmin Instinct. To boot, with the Garmin instinct you get to check the weather first, and you might not be caught out, as I was.


And Finally


I was surprised that the Casio GBD-200 doesn’t allow you to select which sport you’re doing. If you track cycling then you will screw up the data, and if you track walking you will use the watch for many more hours per week than it is planned for. I am not often confused about how I feel about a device. I wish the casio would do more, but at the same time I bought it because it does less. I’m all the more confused because according to the Apple Fitness app I stood, moved and exercised enough and now I don’t know what the source for the data was. I need to keep experimenting.

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