GearFlogger

Ritter Sport Milk Chocolate with Cornflakes

What is it about chocolate and cornflakes? I always thought deep-fried ice cream in chocolate sauce might be my absolute favorite thing, but along comes Ritter Sport Milk Chocolate with Cornflakes. Great googley moogley.

Really, you want to know the nutrition information? OK, paging Doctor Killjoy, go to MyFitnessPal. But who cares, it's chocolate with cornflakes! What it really is, is motivation. On that butt-hurting summit slog, when you need something to think about besides the suck, it helps to have a reward in mind.

Yeah, there's the Freedom of the Hills and all that, but you can't eat it when you get to the top. For that, there's chocolate, and Ritter Sport may be the best motivational speaker around.

$26.83 for a 10-pack on Amazon - yes, a 10-pack, don't judge me

Outdoor Research Peruvian Hat

Here's some GearFloggin' for your noggin: the classic Outdoor Research uber-beanie, their Peruvian hat featuring a solid tick-list of alpine necessities.

The Peruvian looks like a standard four-panel crown construction beanie, of which there are many good ones out there. What sets it apart are four critical features for serious backcountry use. First, it's made out of GoreTex WindStopper to keep your ears attached to your head in alpine conditions. Second, the earflaps are long enough to cover the most elephantine of ears. Third, the earflaps can be secured by a chin drawcord, which for some reason is rarely shown in the pictures, but rest assured it's there.

Finally, the Peruvian is slim enough to sit seamlessly under a helmet or tight hood. Like all WindStopper headgear there's a certain deadening of sound with the earflaps down. If you really need to hear stuff, the earflaps easily fold up either inside or outside the hat, thanks to the elastic trim. The Peruvian is a fantastic hat, and at only 1.6 ounces there is no excuse to leave it behind next time you're headed out for an epic.

$15.99 to $32.00 at Moosejaw

Sierra Designs Gnar Lite down jacket

What magic is this? Down that is dry? Just when you think innovation in outdoor gear has stalled out, along comes new tech like the Sierra Designs Gnar Lite down jacket. It's been out for a couple years now, but it's still state of the art and even better, you can find it on sale!

The Gnar Lite uses 800 fill DriDown, which unlike a lot of vendor buzzwords actually means something great: the down feathers are treated with a polymer to make them ten times more water resistant than untreated down. As a result DriDown retains 170 percent more loft when wet and dries 33 percent faster, according to SD. Other claimed benefits are increased durability and better warmth to weight due to its ability to resist normal background levels of humidity such as your own skanky sweat you nasty pig-dog of a creature.

The treatment doesn't wash out over the normal lifespan of garment, and it doesn't add any measurable weight. Given the overall wonderfulness of the technology it would have been easy to overlook the other design choices in a jacket, but SD didn't even break stride. The Gnar Lite is based on a proven design and is a rockin' jacket in its own right. Weighing just 11 ounces, with three of those ounces being fill weight, the Gnar is a beautiful minimalist light down jacket that is comfortable down into single digits.

A polyester ripstop shell houses two zipped hand pockets backed by two open interior stash pockets and an interior zipped chest pocket. The zipper parks in its own little garage to prevent a chafed neck, and there are thumbholes on the cuffs if you're into that, you kinky bastards. Even if you're not, the cuffs are cut a bit long and have an elastic opening, which is great both for pulling over and slipping under glove cuffs. There's an internal hem drawcord, and it even comes with its own stuff sack. The sack is redundant, because you'll be wearing the Gnar everywhere; it has that "livable-ness" that almost prevented it from getting reviewed since it so quickly became just the thing that lived on our back. And yes, the colors are just as cool as they look. Highly recommended.

$157.73 (on sale from $229.00) at REI

DMM Revolver Screwgate carabiner pulley

Introducing the ayatollah of lock-and-rollah! DMM has had their kick-butt Revolver wiregate pulley carabiner out for a few years now and it has proven itself in the field. See that review for how to put together an ultralight crevasse rescue hauling system. Now our fine Welsh friends have done it again, this time with lockability.

Available in three different locking formats, climbers will want the screwgate. The action on the screwgate is buttah smooth, and unlike the wiregate it's a keylock nose for snag-free unclipping. The screwgate adds minimally to weight for a total of 2.2oz. The gate opening is a little tight but workable at 16mm.

The Revolver is fully certified as both a carabiner and as a pulley. The pulley makes wandering ropelines pull smoothly for less leader effort, and the ease of lowering saves wear on your 'spensive thread for top-roping. If you're still wandering the icefields with old-school pulleys, do yourself a big favor and chamber some Revolvers.

$36.95 at Backcountry

Salomon Deemax 2 Dry Winter Boots

Deee-Lite says the groove is in the heart. True, but the warmth is in the feet if you're wearing Salomon's Deemax 2 Dry winter boots. When I was a kid I was stuck with moon boots and let's just say they weren't as cool as Napoleon Dynamite made them seem. The original Deemax was a handsome boot that outperformed its own specs, and I wore them just about exclusively for normal daily winter wear over three years in Anchorage, Alaska. It was one of the very few pieces of gear of any kind that I actually wore out.

I took the plunge and bought the updated Deemax 2 when I saw them on sale at REI, and I'm happy to report they are just as good and maybe a little bit better even. The Deemax 2 Dry tips the scales at just over 2lb and is comfort rated to +20F thanks to 200g of Thinsulate. Temperature ratings are highly variable, but I tend to run a bit cold and yet I have no problem with these boots down into single digits. In fact, I normally wear them with just a liner sock because they're so warm. They breathe very well thanks to the snow-shedding waterproof welded soft shell.

The Contagrip sole is lugged, grippy and stable and the speed lace system zips them right up. If you've felt the bite from these thin laces on Salomon's trail runners, have no fear: the padded tongue on the Deemax evenly distributes the pressure and is quite comfy. There's even a power strap that provides noticable extra stability when cinched down. There's a nice cut in the achilles tendon area that allows the foot to slide in fairly easily even though they don't open super far. That's good because the Deemax seems to run a bit small. Go a full size larger if you can't try them on before ordering, especially if you have high-volume sausage feet or like to wear thick socks. Really a fantastic boot from a company that knows footwear.

$149.93 at Amazon (check REI first for possible sale price)

Coleman Esky Cooler

Buy once, cry once, or so "they" say when it comes to paying for quality. That certainly applies to high-end coolers like the Esky, available from Coleman in 55, 85 and monstrous 135 quart capacities.

We've got the 85qt at home, and the first thing we did was to throw a bag of ice inside and set the timer. 24 hours later it was still more ice than water, and this was sitting inside at a comfy 70 degrees. OK, color us impressed.

Looking at the construction of the Esky, it's easy to see why it works so damn well. The thing is built like a tank. Our three-year-old can jump up and down on the lid with no visible flexing. Even my fat ass can stand on it, 200 pounds (plus a little extra winter weight, but I'm gonna take that off real soon now) and no problem. The surface is UV-resistant and tough as nails.

The 85qt weighs 42 pounds and measures roughly 35x10x22 on the outside, and 23x12x15 on the inside, so it's clearly big for its capacity, but it also has a freakin' six year warranty; that's more than my 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee came with! The size is necessary to fit 2.5 inches of insulation on the top and bottom and 2 inches on the sides. Inside there's a dry storage basket that hooks on to the top rim to keep delicates out of the damp, there's a large cutting board that stores on the underside of the lid, and there are lock slots on both sides. The drain hole, handles and rubber toggles on the front are all oversize for easy manipulation.

There is even a fish scale on the top of the lid, tie down points, nonskid feet and antimicrobial protection on the inside. If NASA decided to build a cooler, they would have built the Esky. You can hand this one down to your children, and if you spend a lot of time outdoors where you need to keep things cool, it's worth every pinched penny.

On sale from $319.99 to $439.99 at Cabela's

Black Diamond Camalot C4 cams

Camalots have been around forever. I have a full set from the halcyon years of the early 1990s with double stems and "Chouinard" stamped on them. I am just that old-school, and exactly that stingy.

The new ones are even better and feature numerous improvements. They have a single stem now, an integrated sling, are a bit lighter, have a slightly narrower profile for shallow cracks, and the cam lobes themselves are a bit thicker for better purchase on soft rock. Otherwise, the new boss is pretty much the same as the old boss. Except... wait for it... you can now get matching anodized Neutrino carabiners! Omigawd! Oh yeah, and they come in sets.

Crack sizes the C4 is designed for range from roughly half an inch to seven and a half inches over the ten different cams, and thanks in part to the double axel design there is a comfortable overlap between adjacent sizes to plug those long even splitter routes.

$64.95 to $124.95 at REI

ICEtrekkers Traction Devices

Maybe you're enjoying a little global freezing on main street, or maybe you're wanting to make it up that icy trail to the good stuff. Either way when the going gets slick, the smart people - not us, but people we know, or at least know of - put on traction devices.

OK, we actually are smart enough to use whatever we can to avoid falling down and breaking a large bone. The trick is not necessarily finding a decent traction device, it's finding one that doesn't crap the bed after just a few weeks of consistent use. YakTrax, maker of ICEtrekkers, used to produce their eponymous traction devices with a coil spring in bombproof form, but something happened to materials over the way and these days they seem pretty fragile. We had no such problem with the ICEtrekkers, which are pretty dang solid. Hey YakTrax, we're watching you: don't cut corners on these!

ICEtrekkers use a bunch of rotating cleat-thingies attached to the rubber rand by short chains. They work great, and they're easy enough to pull on and off thanks to the glove-friendly pull loop in the back. This also conveniently reminds you which end is the back, something that can be as hard to determine as a chinchilla's gender on some other brands.

As usual, don't wear indoors, because this design especially will scratch wood and laminate floors, and on tile it will just be slippery underfoot. Also grates. Definitely avoid grates with all traction devices, because they will plant you on your puss faster than a chinchilla... well, we don't know what a chinchilla does quickly. Just look out for grates, and the ICEtrekkers will keep you upright on the nastiest of frozen gunk. If you know any older folks, pregnant women, wounded warriors or anyone who needs a little assist this winter, do them a solid and pick them up a pair. 

About $30.00 on Amazon

Jade Eggs

In the spirit of Valentine's Day and ohmygawdWTF I present... jade eggs. As a male of the species, burdened as I am by my Y chromosome, I do not pretend to understand the subtleties of vaginal exercise. I take it at face value that training these important muscles is beneficial.

So all I can do is quote Kim Anami, "holistic sex and relationship coach," on the benefits of "vaginal kung fu" which involves, and I am not making this up, lifting things with her vagina. I can hear your skepticism, so I provide as a public service this link to her Instagram account for actual proof of said lifting.

Ms. Anami uses the eggs for practical tasks that may be familiar to all you gearfloggers out there: carrying her surfboard, lunch and picking up found objects in third world countries because... I really don't know because.

We'll just close with her parting words of vaginal wisdom: "These things are possible for every woman: ping pong tricks, multiple orgasms, ejaculate that shoots across the room, and insane, life-changing pleasure."

$23.95 at (where else?) Amazon

PMI 5mm Accessory Cord

I remember I made a mistake once. It was this time, I thought I was wrong but it turned out I wasn't. To that we may add a second mistake: I needed some accessory cord for prussiks and assumed - yes, you read that right, I assumed - that it would be cheaper off the spool at REI versus pre-cut in a package.

Fail! A package of thirty feet is on sale for $5.93 (normally $8.50) versus $0.32 per foot off the spool which is... which is... c'mon Google calculator! Which is $9.60 for thirty feet, a full buck-ten $3.67 more, which is a full pint of beer plus shitty tip (really, don't be that guy) in a dirtbag bar somewhere! And you get a free plastic bag and cardboard label with really tiny pictures of people doing presumably cool things with said cord.

Anyway, the PMI cord is to replace another package of 5 mil I bought that turned out to be polyester. The PMI cord is gloriously grippy nylon, which is much more suitable for prussiks, especially on skinny 8mm glacier travel ropes. Especially when they're icy. And I'm scared and peeing myself. Creating more ice, so you see the dilemma. And finally, it's in camouflage desert tan for your next ninja counterterrorism mission. Nuff said.

$5.93 (on sale from $8.50) at REI