Mountaineering gear news, reviews and tests
MSR is a great company with an excellent reputation so it is not surprising that their tents are such best sellers. They have a full range that extends all the way from skimpy little shelters that weight hardly anything all the way up to some pretty serious expedition and mountaineering tents. One of their more [...] Read more »
Diamond Jacket The Swiss know a thing or two about keeping warm in the cold and it seems as if all that knowledge has been distilled into the Mammut Diamond Jacket for skiing and snowboarding. This is a new softshell jacket that uses Gore-Tex’s comfort mapping technology that has been getting rave reviews. What makes [...] Read more »
After a long day on the hill or trail there is nothing that compares to the sound a stove buzzing away and the smell of supper cooking. It is probably for this reason that most mountaineers and hikers have a deep emotional relationship with their stove. It is not just another piece of gear but [...] Read more »
OUTDOORSmagic has just run a first-look review of a new superlightweight mountaineering boot, the Spider GTX by AKU.The new boot take a C1 crampon (a flexible crampon good for crossing glaciers and the like but not serious iceclimbing) and is good down to -25C.The review doesn’t give a weight for the boot but does say [...] Read more »
I’ve always thought of my Petzl headlamps as the Lance Armstrongs of the headlight world. They’re light, they shine and they just keep on going day in day out. But, just as Lance has bowed out of the Tour de France after dominating it for years, I sometimes worry my trusty Petzl may have to [...] Read more »
Who would have thought that something has humble as little gas canister stove would create as much of a stir as the Jetboil has. Mention this funky little cooker to someone who owns one and they’ll likely go cross-eyed and start talking about it like a lover or friend, not a darned canister stove. Time Magazine features [...] Read more »
Podsacs, which has attained something of a cult status for its Black Ice backpack, has just introduced a stripped down version with enough ounces shaved to make a difference when the air gets thin. The new Thin Ice is made of Dyneema, a fabric more commonly spotted in slings, tapes and bulletproof jackets because of [...] Read more »
There’s a particular feeling you get when you cinch yourself into a pair of four-season winter boots. It’s an electric mix of invincibility and discomfort as you adjust your gait to a ramrod sole that’s meant for kicking snow steps and front pointing all day. Serious boots were built for one thing, and that’s not [...] Read more »
Scarpa has just cleaned up the British Trail Magazine’s awards, winning best 4-season winter boot with the Scarpa Manta and best 3-4 season boot with the Scarpa SL. The review, which calls itself “Britain’s toughest test”, is bound to increase the popularity of the already iconic Manta boot. Update 2010: Most of this was written [...] Read more »
I just came across a great site that deserves a link.Flashlightreviews.com does what it says on the tin. This guy has virtually taken apart just about every flashlight in existence, photographed them front and back, measured their output and even done his own runtime tests on them. He’s also got a great Q&A that covers [...] Read more »