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.
For an ultralight alpine setup where two ropes are needed for rappels, it would be hard to top this package. The 6.9mm Flycatcher rope—you read that diameter right—is so thin that Edelrid had to invent a new belay device to handle it: the Micro Jul. A pair of 60m Flycatchers weighs just over 9 lbs.—about the same as one 10mm.
Modeled after the popular curved, double-gripped Black Diamond Fusion and Petzl Nomic tools, the Raptor is a fairly worthy competitor. Female and small-handed testers especially loved this tool for its light weight (19 oz. without the optional 2-oz. pick weights) and smaller grip size. “I have tiny hands, and I didn’t have to over-grip for fear of losing a tool. With a mid-weight glove on, the main grip above the pinky rest encased my hand near perfectly,” said one tester.
It’s funny how much waiting happens at the crag: Belaying, spotting, gawking, sharing beta—these don’t require a ton of energy. What’s not funny is how far your core temperature can drop on cold days during inactivity. Solution? The Sierra Designs DriDown Gnar Lite jacket ($229; sierradesigns.com). While at first glance it looks like any other 800-fill down jacket (and indeed its weight and warmth are comparable to most in that category), it’s the invisible treatment to the down itself that makes the difference.
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