GearFlogger

Black Diamond Mission 50 pack

It's ice climbing season baby! Time to sharpen up tools and crampons, binge on Nutella milkshakes and prostitute yourself down the 'hood for extra money to buy ice screws. Seriously, it's an expensive sport: ass, stash or cash, nobody climbs for free.

Luckily, Black Diamond's Mission 50 pack (also available in big-brother size, the Mission 75) doesn't break the bank. The sexy lava red Mission 50 is a great pack that starts with a comprehensive tick list: floating top lid with exterior main pocket and inside flat zipped pocekt, six inch spindrift collar with a single cord at the top, vertical slash zipper on main bag for access to interior on right side as worn, inside hydration pouch and hang loop with exit ports on both sides, dual compression straps on each side, and ski loops for side carry round out the generic portion of the 50's feature list.

But wait, there's more. Ice climbing involves a lot of sharp objects. The Mission 50 does a superb job of isolating the pointy things from the rest of your stuff. The PickPocket ice tool system conceals the picks, and a welded crampon pocket stores your claws. Each side of the waist belt has a loop for an Ice Clipper to hold your screws that you prostituted yourself for earlier (see step three in paragraph one above), and a gear loop for the inevitable "other stuff as assigned." The minor caveat we mentioned above is the rope strap, the design of which was evidently shopped out to a drunken three-year-old in a penal colony. The buckle is stuffed into a tiny pocket that you can only get two fingers into if you use a Star Trek wormhole. Solution: cut the pocket material around the buckle away and you're good to go.

On a much more important note, the Mission 50 has a beautifully designed suspension, a lot of which (frame, framesheet, top pocket and hip belt) can be removed to strip it from 3lb 10oz to 2lb 5oz, a respectable difference. The hip belt pivots independently of the pack just enough to make scrambling less of a spine-torqueing exercise than normal. The rest of the adjustments are standard, with some nice touches like elastic keepers on the load lifter straps and a sternum strap buckle whistle.

Overall the Mission 50 is a great ice climbing pack. It carries the large amount of bulky stuff you need for winter fun, hides all the pointy parts and carries comfortably. The hip belt, shoulder straps and other suspension components are sized generously to fit over winter clothing, and with the relatively minor exception of the rope strap, the buckles and other fittings are glove-friendly. You are cleared for Mission: Screaming Barfies.

$199.95 at Moosejaw

Bowers & Wilkins C5 headphones

It's Cyber Monday! So much shiny-shiny! Bowers & Wilkins throws red meat to those of us who love a little tungsten in our lives. The C5 in-ear sound isolating headphones are gorgeous, tiny, innovative and sound great.

The greatest thing about the C5 is the adjustable fit. The headphone cable is ingeniously curled around the body, and the resulting adjustable loop is what holds it in your ear. The fit is comfortable and secure and just so damn smart looking! I know, I know, you're smart too! Best thing for active people, the secure fit means the C5 can take some jostling when you're on the move.

The technology is alien. Something about micro-porous filters, tungsten weighting, blah blah blah. Bottom line: they sound fantastic. Got an iPhone? The inline remote has a microphone for calls and controls for your music. The whole enchilada comes in a nice little zippered case with a clever cord management solution, and extra eartips for different sized ears. Outstanding!

$179.95 at Amazon

Feathered Friends Ptarmigan sleeping bag

Some people say you shouldn't kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Well I say screw them. They obviously haven't frozen their ass off on top of some godforsaken mountain in Lesser Trashcanistan. I say kill the damn goose and make a sleeping bag out of it.

Feathered Friends is a Seattle-based company dedicated to doing just that. If it can be made with down, they make it. The Ptarmigan -25F is a shining example of fart sack technology, at just 3lb 11oz with 36.5oz of soft and lofty 850+ fill power down. It even comes in a women's (Plover) and big-boned (Peregrine) versions, the latter useful for when you want to get in with your other down gear on. Kind of like a human/goose version of a turducken. A gooman, if you will.

No nasty velcro inside to stick to your undies. One snap closes the outer bag, another snap fixes the draft collar. There's one drawcord for the collar and another one for the hood. A nice fat draft tube runs behind the full-length zipper. Feathered Friends uses big, roomy baffles to allow their premium hand-picked down to fully loft, and they take extra care in how they stitch it all together.

The result is a bag that is true to its comfort rating and then some: do not hesitate to trust their temperature ratings. An added bonus is the choice of shell material they offer: I got mine in waterproof, breathable eVent, which will stand up to prolonged condensation and evaporation in multiweek outings. For faster and lighter materials talk to the guys at FF; they know their fabrics and will hook you up.

$719.00 at Feathered Friends

Therm-a-Rest Z Lite SOL sleeping pad

You may think you're reading a review about the good-ole Therm-a-Rest Z Lite foam sleeping pad. Ha! Wrong-o in the bong-o my gear-soaked friend. We are reviewing a super-secret-squirrel new model, the Z Lite SOL. That's right, capital letters, and you know what that means: it's computerized!

OK, that's a lie. There's no computer, but there is a shiny thermal reflective barrier on the bottom that increases the R from today's 2.2 to 2.6. Yeah, OK, it's pretty much impossible to notice the additional warmth, but it is a theoretical almost-20 percent increase. The point is that when your buddy whips out his piss-colored old school Z Lite, you can whip out your piss-colored but shiny-assed SOL and establish dominant gear superiority! Suck it baby!

Other than that they're pretty much the same. It's still svelte, at under 15oz and a packed size of 20x5x5.5 for the size regular 20x72. No word yet on whether the size small at 20x47 and 10oz will also still be available.The accordion-style design is insanely useful and not just for sleeping, but for storing and converting to chair duty. If you've ever fought with a rolled pad you'll appreciate the folding design; getting it from pack to tent and back again is much simpler.

The egg-crate design gives a little more cushioning than a closed cell flat pad for you side-sleepers out there. It's versatile, converting to a 3/4 length pad with double-thickness under your bony hips easily. It makes a great chair too, doubled for two people or quadrupled for one. Storage is simple: creatively folded it can go anywhere on a pack, in or out. The high-visibility Limon color is bright and cheery, just like you'll be as you watch your campmates try to reverse curl their old-school pads whilst you lounge on your Z-Lite SOL.

$ Price not yet available

Therm-a-Rest NeoAir All-Season sleeping pad

As we attain a certain maturity, the little things seem to weigh a lot larger on our admittedly shrinking minds. A good night's sleep is near the top of that list, and the more difficult the journey the more important this is. Enter the NeoAir.

Therm-a-Rest has developed its NeoAir series into three different models, and we've used the standard limon-colored model with great success. On the flip side we've heard from friends about the occasional leaking unit, but in our experience that's kind of par for the course when it comes to air pads, no matter the make or model; you just have to live with a certain malfunction rate. Buy it where you can return it, test it before you use it (you don't even have to sleep on it, just inflate it and stack some weight on it overnight), always carry a patch kit (and read the instructions at home!), and finally, if conditions are going to be double-hairy-hobbit-assed-nasty epic!, double up with a second foam pad like our current fave the Therm-a-Rest Z-Lite.

OK, enough with the caveats. The NeoAir All-Season is the warmer version, increasing the R from 2.5 to 4.9, with a corresponding weight increase from 14oz to 19oz for a size regular (20x72, also available in medium 20x66 and large 25x77). All models are 2.5in thick, and the packed size is about the same, roughly equivalent to a quart bottle. The extra five ounces is an easy decision to live with when the going gets bone-numbing-russian-gulag-shitty epic! Stuff sack includes, and as a personal side-note, it makes a handy container for the screaming barfies.

The All-Season is definitely warmer, and super-comfy to boot thanks to the cross-ways orientation of the baffles. One great thing about it is that you don't have to worry about the moisture in your breath compromising the insulation, because it's a kind of space-blanket reflective cell construction rather than down or synthetic based. This saves weight too; did we mention it weighs 19oz? Comfy, warm, light, the NeoAir All-Season is the way to go when the going gets craptastic-barfalcious-pisstabulous epic! Assuming no malfunctions the remainder of the season, the All-Season will get Denali Approved and make the next trip up the big rock.

$149.95 at REI

Black Diamond tests the breaking point of runners

Black Diamond tested the breaking point of wet and dry runners. We're generally supportive of the abuse of runners - what kind of sport is that, really? - yet initially we were sketical; surely a wet person will break at the same point as a dry person. Then we realized they were talking about webbing! Nylon and Dynex specifically:

"Dynex runners don’t seem to be affected when soaked, which was to be expected. Nylon runners, on the other hand, show about a 10% decrease in strength when wet. Should this slight decrease in strength be concerning? Not really. The strength of these, wet or dry, are well above the product rating and pretty much any force that can be created in the field. Bottom line: runners are crazy strong, wet or dry. So even if my partner had gone for a ride during our rain-drenched climb, he would have been fine.
 
"Note: If your runners or other gear gets soaked, don’t dry it out in direct sunlight. This causes degradation and a potential decrease in strength. How much? Check out an entry from the QC Lab archives: Testing Old Gear from the VRG. Dried out and sun-bleached slings broke at around 11 kN with some as low as 5 kN. That’s 1124 lbf and getting well into sketchy land."

Read complete article at Black Diamond

Princeton Tec Bot headlamp

Itty-bitty headlamps are insanely useful and should be near the top of your gift list this holiday season. Priced right for a stocking stuffer is the Princeton Tec Bot headlamp, targeted at kids but really, what the hell do they have to look at that's so important? The Bot is great for all sizes of peoples.

The twin-LED Bot takes two triple A's - included! - and the battery cover is held on by a single screw. This frustrated the SheFlogger until I pointed out to her, helpfully and with only the barest hint of condescension in my voice, that it is after all meant for kids, so the screw makes sense instead of a quick release. She didn't even thank me for this information.

The Bot headband adjusts down for tykes and narrow-minded people, and the light is easily adjustable up and down. The button is smart: if you press it repeatedly it cycles through low (9 hours), high (4.5), blinking (11) and off, but if more than a few seconds goes by pressing it again turns it off without having to cycle through the modes. The Bot also shuts off after six hours automatically. That's pretty cool; really, a one-hour shutoff would have been perfect.

The housing is water resistant, so when it inevitably goes in the toilet it can survive if you get in there fast enough. Overall the lighting is great, the design fantastic and the price so reasonable you have to order three to get free shipping on Amazon!

$11.88 at Amazon

Beko face protection

We've all been there: biting wind blasting your face, wishing you had brought a balaclava. Still, a clava may be more warmth than you want on a sunny/windy day, and it doesn't always fit under a helmet. They can be a bit bulky to stash in a pocket for just-in-case use. For this problem, Beko face protection is the answer. These guys have obviously spent way too much time drinking and thinking, because these products are fully dialed in.

Beko started back in the day with a simple nose guard, which they updated last year to a much thinner material with some smart attachment features. Available in five sizes, there are slots for eyeglass nose pads to go through, a generous neoprene loop for blade-style sunglasses, and a velcro sticky pad for attaching to goggles. All methods work great and minimize flip-up in wind.

But let's say you want to get really serious. Step up to the Cheeko, Peeko or Fantom. You may or may not be a fan of the android-style pattern on these pieces, but you will love the way they perform. The Cheeko covers your ears, nose and upper cheeks. The Peeko extends coverage down to your upper lip and throat while leaving your lower jaw free. the Fantom says screw it, let's go full-robot and covers it all with a thin slit for your mouth. This is what we wear when we're making out with our Japanese love doll.

All three of these models rest on your nose and have slots that fit around your ears. We wondered about this, but we're here to tell you it works great. You slap it on, forget it's there and you don't worry about fogging your lenses at all as your breath is directed down and out. To recap: complete sun and wind protection, customizable attachments, comfortable fit, thin profile for wearing under face and head gear, and compact enought to slip in a pocket for just-in-case use. Check!

$7.95 to $24.95 at Bekogear

Bibler Fitzroy tent

After the nuclear holocaust when the only living things left are Keith Richards and cockroaches, they'll be partying large in the Bibler Fitzroy tents that survived with them. We can attest to the bombproof design of the Fitzroy, a veteran of multiple Denali and Rainier attempts where it kept us safe and snug.

Like most tents rated for three people the Fitzroy holds two people comfortably and three in a pinch. A svelte seven pounds, the single-wall design and internal pole system set up quickly and securely in a storm. In a vicious wind you can crawl inside the tent to keep it from blowing away while you rig the internal poles; nice! The second door, extra room and more stable design give it the edge over Bibler's lighter and smaller Eldorado model in our humble opinion.

The clever side guy lines self-equalize, and when you fully stake this puppy out it is the most stable tent around. Like any single wall the Fitzroy is a compromise. The ToddTex fabric can build up some impressive frost in colder temps when you don't want to vent it too much, but that's hard to get away from with any single wall tent. The vestibule, footprint and gear loft are worthwhile additions. If survivability in a small package for two is what you're looking for, the Fitzroy should be at the top of your list.

$699.00 at MooseJaw

CAMP USA Alp 95 harness

Sometimes when I'm alone at home I like to put on the SheFlogger's thong. It helps me feel special. Now I can get the same feeling on the mountain with the CAMP Alp 95, a butt-floss of a harness for low-angle alpine and adventure racing use.

The Alp 95 weighs in at 3.5oz, about as much as a locking carabiner. An upgraded version of CAMP's XLH 95, the Alp adds a tie-in point and an adjustable waist belt. There is a loop on each side if you want to add a 'biner to rack gear, but the Alp really shines underneath a pack. The Alp lived under my Mchale hip belt on Denali this year and was not even noticable, as long as you don't get the little pad behind the buckle underneath. And make sure the waist belt lies flat before putting your pack on.

I didn't spend much hang time in the Alp for obvious reasons, but properly adjusted it is comfortable enough. The leg loops run small, and that can present a sizing problem; measure your thighs first if you're ordering online, because you might have to move up a size. That will mean you'll have to crank the waist down all the way. I'd like to see the leg loops an inch or two bigger for each size. Other than that the Alp really cuts down on weight. You see a lot of climbers sporting pound-plus harnesses on routes like Denali's West Buttress and Rainier when the Alp would do just fine.

$39.96 (on sale from $49.95) at Moosejaw