If you’ve read our No BS Essential Motorhome Skiing Items list then you’ll know that we’re pretty opinionated when it comes to some of the stuff that people will tell you is vital for survival when it comes to high altitude winter camping!
We’ve also always been on a fairly tight budget when it comes to travelling – we put work on hold for extended periods of time and that means we’re usually watching the pennies more than many who are either working a season, living the good life in well-earned retirement or cramming their skiing into a few short weeks.
We’re known for spending smart – investing in high quality gear that will hopefully last a long time and leaving out stuff that we think we can do without. This list is specifically about electrical gear and it’s stuff we’ve found invaluable or it’s made life a load easier one way or another.
- Heavy Duty Insulated Cable for EHU (All year round)
- Fishing Rod Stands (Winter use)
- Rubber Cable Cover (all year round)
- Power Spliter (All year round)
Heavy Duty Insulated Cable for EHU (All year round)
Also in our Motorhome Essentials guide, a heavy duty arctic spec cable is worth investing in.
For most conditions, your regular orange cable will probably be good enough but we’ve upgraded to an arctic grade cable (2.5mm as opposed to 1.5mm) plus we’ve invested in a really long 25m version for places where the only hook up is at the end of a row.
This cable is more resistant to the cold, less likely to crack and weaken from frost fatigue. It’s a bit more expensive than your regular one but power is something we’re always keen to make as robust as possible.
Here’s a link to the 25m arctic cable but 14m ones are available.
Fishing Rod Stands (Winter use)
They’re for your cable. Plant them in the snow, pop your cable through the rod holder and you won’t loose your cable overnight in an epic snow storm.
These are the ones we have (Here’s the Amazon link – make sure you select the number you want in the drop down as they are priced individually) – chosen over all the others for several reasons
- The hi vis top makes them easy to find in the snow
- They’re telescopic with the thread inside not as an external butterfly nob (gets frozen up)
- They’re dirt cheap
- They have a big enough top to accommodate various gage of cable and multiple cables if required
We have also popped a bit of high vis tape (you can get a bunch of different colours but this is the stuff we got from Amazon)
Rubber Cable Cover (all year round)
If you’ve invested in the arctic cable, it’s going to withstand the cold but put it head to head against a snow plough and you might find the lights go out rather suddenly! You won’t be able to use your fishing rod stands everywhere and where your cable lays on the ground, it’s vulnerable to people driving over with snow chains, diggers and utility vehicles going about their duties.
This is the stuff I’ve used for years in motor racing paddocks (heavy duty rubber cable cover – with hi vis) and it’s another thing that’s not cheap but is a good investment.
Normally you don’t need more than this 1.8m stretch but this stuff connects together so for example if your hook-up point is positioned over a thoroughfare, two of these will definitely have you covered.
Pretty useful for summer motorhoming we imagine too.
Power Splitter (All year round)
When you’re going to need a flexible power splitter:
Firstly, this can come in handy if you’re doing multiple jobs around the motorhome – i.e. powering the van from a generator and waxing your skis outside – splitting the power provided by your generator without having to have another cable entirely.
Secondly, there are a bunch of aires where the power supply is limited and if you liaise with your aire-fellows, you might find someone willing to share.
Flexible is better than ridged – some of the sockets are tricky to get your plug into at the best of times and those on aires that are winter ready often have sprung covers which make it impossible to put more than a single rigid plug in. This solves that problem and they’re are a few different suppliers on Amazon (here’s the best we found at the time of writing).
