With trips to Smith Rock, Hueco Tanks, and Colombia, the Maximus Duffel proved to be an expedition-ready carry-all durable enough to stand up to any baggage handler’s abuse. With burly 1,000-denier tarpaulin and 210-denier nylon ripstop fabrics, this duffel showed almost no signs of wear despite dragging, throwing, and rolling it through airports, across sidewalks, and around camp.
The brunt of a rope’s strength comes from the core, and while the sheath doesn’t add significant strength, it does protect the core from damage. A sliced sheath will quickly unravel, exposing several feet of core, making the rope unusable. Solution? Beal introduced Unicore technology last year in two ropes; this bonds the core to the sheath via a thin, lightweight filament that’s woven between the two.
Crevasse rescue skills are a necessary part of glacier travel, and although they seem complicated, the RescYou kit simplifies the setup of these intricate systems. This kit is a powerful pulley system set up in a compact, 14-oz. package that’s easy to keep in your alpine stash. Building a safe anchor is still necessary, but setting up your own 6-to-1 mechanical advantage is already done for you here.
Cheers to Nemo for making two of our favorite bags of the year. The Stratoloft 25 (right) is a down comforter that pairs with an insulated air pad (sold separately); the combo is the perfect setup for car camping and weekenders. “The pad with integrated pillow and lofty down bag with elastic in the seams made for a better night’s sleep than I get at home,” said one tester.
One of the founders of Cloudveil recently launched Stio, a brand with a similar spirit (Jackson, Wyoming-based, designed for climbers and skiers—and cracking beers back in town). The Origins Hoody has become a tester favorite.
Ultralight approach shoes are fine and dandy, but for ankle support when scrambling up a creek bed or surfing scree on a descent, look no further than the Xplorer Mid GTX. La Sportiva took its popular low-top Xplorer and beefed it up for heavyduty hikes, yet added only about 5 oz. to a pair.
A day in the alpine can bring a little bit of everything: hiking, rock, snow, choss, hanging belays, and multiple rappels. “After my first eight hours in this harness, I was sold,” said one tester after a late summer scramble-snow-rock ascent of Rocky Mountain National Park’s Longs Peak.
Patagonia’s own version of water-resistant down ups the ante by boosting loft to an astonishing 1,000-fill. They zap 800-fill down with radio waves until its molecular structure changes, allowing the plumes to accept a silicone DWR treatment without the use of chemical binders.
Tagged as “the lightest carabiner set on the market,” these clippers barely tip the scales at 19.5 grams (about 0.7 oz.) per biner—hence the name. That’s about 20 percent lighter than the sveltest micro-biners out there. Put another way, a rack of 10 Edelrid Nineteen G quickdraws with 10cm Dyneema slings weighs less than a pound.
Take the weather resistance of the best softshell and marry it to the breathability of an unlined fleece, and you have the Acto MX. “It’s great for high-output activities in the alpine,” said one tester after climbing the Breithorn outside of Zermatt, Switzerland, on a crisp, bluebird day.
“It’s like wearing armor,” said one tester after a two-week stint in perpetually weather-beaten south Patagonia, during which he rarely took the jacket off. “From climbing to sea kayaking to horseback riding, this jacket is perfect for the cold and wet, and it handles abrasion better than just about any other shell I’ve seen.”
Many “summit packs” are little more than stuff sacks with shoulder straps, but the Bacon is as hearty as its namesake. Ultralight (23 oz.) but tough, the 28-liter Bacon has a lightly padded back and internal webbing “skeleton” that kept loads centered squarely on the back and made it comfortable to carry modest loads up to 15 lbs.
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