This one-of-a-kind kneepad features a wraparound design with quick-cinch buckles that makes the pad easy on, easy off. Instead of taking off your shoes or bunching up your pants, you can strap it around almost anything on your leg—no more duct tape, liquid adhesives, or weird shave jobs just to get your kneepad on.
When you find clothing that is comfortable, versatile, stretchy, and flattering, it’s a winner. The Urban Gym Capri has a wide waistband for a slimming effect, but, more important, it keeps the pants in place. “These never slipped down—with a harness or without,” one tester said.
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.”
Trying to get your gear room under control? Try a single harness that does it all. The Aspect is comfortable enough for working a route or belaying at a hanging station, light enough (14 oz.) for fairly serious sending, and tricked out for ice and alpine routes. “The waistbelt fit without pinching, even when I was hangdogging on my first mixed routes,” reported one tester after a winter trip to Utah’s Provo Canyon.
“Cobbles fly at the Minimum Crag in Utah’s Maple Canyon,” reported one tester, “but most climbers don’t wear a helmet for fear of losing style points and because it gets hot. But the Vapor is so light and low-profile, I kept it on climbing and belaying.”
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.
Eliminate neck pain with the Belay Specs. They utilize glass prisms mounted to a durable, stainless steel frame that bend the light (like a mirror) so you can see the route above while looking straight ahead. They’re especially great for belaying a project or for multiplehour sessions at the gym.
“I wore the Flash more than any other harness this past fall. It’s a great all-purpose, burly harness,” said one tester. Its standout attribute is comfort, with half-inch-thick perforated foam generously padding the waist and leg loops. Our main testers—two tall, skinny dudes—found the two buckles on the waistbelt extremely helpful for dialing in fit.
For crack climbers, the holy grail of hand tape is the super-sticky, 1.5-inch athletic tape from Mueller Sports Medicine. Unless you have visited Moab, Utah, where the Pagan and Gearheads stores stocked Mueller tape for desertsplitter fiends, this stuff has been hard to find in the U.S.
This is a pack that makes you say, “Why didn’t I think of that?!” The outside is cleanly designed: The top has a recessed area and buckle to nestle a rope with two side compression straps to keep it in place. Two grab handles (one on top and one in the middle on the outside) make it easy to throw around from car to crag.
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