I'm alive, and packing for winter

It's been a while, eh?

Sorry for the impromptu hiatus but I got to the point where there was nothing really that I was doing worth writing about and filler felt pointless. Not that I've got a huge reader base but hey ho. But now the fun begins - it's almost Christmas, there is snow on the peaks and it's almost time to unleash the ice axes on some unsuspecting Scottish routes. It's time to start checking the gear for this winter.

I'm psyched.

Packing for Winter

For all his faults Charlie is surprisingly fair when it comes to complimenting me to others. When going through some of our photos from a weekend in Wales last November we came across one of us prepping to leave the hostel, with my bag neatly packed whilst Charlie's gear was literally thrown all over the car boot and the floor. Charlie chuckles, points at me and says 'he may climb like a knob but the boy knows how to pack a rucksack'.

My neatly packed bag on the left, Charlie's...pile on the right.

When going through my emails recently there were a few with a theme - people wanted to know what goes into my pack on the hill in winter. Honestly I was a little surprised because I've spent all of maybe two weeks on the hill in winter, but as I was planning on spending a day going through all my winter gear to check what needed replacing before this season, I thought I may as well blog about it. After all, if Charlie thinks I can pack well then who am I to judge? Just don't take my packing as gospel - I'm far from an expert and there are people out there who can tell you far better what you should and shouldn't be carrying!

Pictured below is everything that would be in my pack at the start of a day on the hill, minus any of the clothing I'd be wearing from the off.

1 - Rope
At the moment our main winter rope is my beast - a 60m 11.5mm dry-treated Mammut rope. It's seen constant use in summer and winter for a couple of years now, so it's almost time for retirement but it's probably got another season in it. I'll probably be replacing this with two half-ropes for next season, purely for weight reasons - it's bloody heavy!

2 - Harness
Petzl Corax 2 - simple, rugged, fully adjustable leg loops (have you ever tried getting a harness on and off over crampons? Go ahead, try it) and comfortable enough to be worn all day.

3 - Winter rack
It's not all there I'll confess - a lot of my winter gear is in storage still. Bearing in mind I'm still seconding most of the routes we do and would only be leading on a scramble, my rack is pretty pared down compared to Charlie's. In addition to the normal assortment of quickdraws, slings, hexes and nuts I've added a pair of ice screws, a bulldog and pitons (both not pictured).

4 - Hydration
Ask anyone I've climbed with - I drink a lot. In the summer I normally have a massive 3-litre hydration bladder, but in winter I can get away with a couple of litres. In the thermos is normally hot Ribena, purely because it hydrates better than coffee or tea (both of which are diuretics).

5 - Crampons
Grivel G12 C2 crampons. In a crampon bag so they don't pierce everything else in my bag. 'Nuff said really.

6 - Pack
Those of you who are super observant (and may or may not need to get out more) will notice this is a different pack to what I was using on the hill last winter - this is a Mammut Trion 35 which if I'm honest is a far better size for a one-day trip. My Lowe Alpine is great when I need to carry a sleeping bag, tent, food and water for a couple of days but when on the hill, once you strip harness, rack and crampons out of it it's basically empty and tends to flop around a lot.

7 - Helmet
An absolute essential, especially in winter when ice and rock fall is more likely. Comfortable, impact protective with head torch webbing/clips is what you need to look for. Always make sure it's CE certified too!

8 - Ice Axes
I use a pair of DMM Fly ice axes which are pretty much spot on for what I do - straight and long enough to be used as a half-decent walking axe but with its slightly bent shaft, T-rated pick and trig rest mean it can still be used perfectly well on routes well above the grade I can currently climb. If its a walk rather than a climb I'll only take one axe and replace the pick with one from a DMM Raptor which saves my palm from bruising on the Fly's raised pick when walking with it. Oh, and leashes too - dropping an axe is never a good idea.

9 - Spare insulation
Winter is bloody cold, so a decent packable lightweight insulation layer is essential. I tend to skew away from using down in anything but a basecamp jacket purely because when down gets wet it becomes useless, but a synthetic jacket will keep me warm even if it's sodden. This is a Mountain Equipment Compressor jacket which is my go-to insulation piece at winter.

10 - Camera
Panasonic Lumix DMC FT-5 - perfect for me and what I do. Crush proof to 100kg, drop proof from 2m onto concrete, freeze proof and takes decent photos. What more could a man want?

11 - First Aid Kit
A small but essential bit of kit on the mountain. I'll do a detailed breakdown of what I carry in another post but a decent First Aid Kit and the training on how to use it should be equipment in the locker of any mountaineer. I really don't want to be that guy who has to call Mountain Rescue for an injury that could be easily treated myself.

12 - Goggles
Wales last winter proved to me how essential these were. Up on the summit of Tryfan the conditions were so awful that we spent less than a minute on the summit with faces bent in the face of biting, freezing hail and/or driven powder snow. These goggles allow me to see when the going gets nasty - when it's most important! Tinted lenses help to up the contrast of colours, making it easier to differentiate areas in low light.

13 - Ice Axe maintainance kit
After a bolt fell out of my axe head in Scotland I always keep a spare pair of bolts, allen keys and tape in my pack for emergencies.

14 - Jetboil and food
A warm meal can be the difference between life and death in a survival situation. In other situations a warm lunch just below the summit is a huge morale boost. I take a couple of high-calorie dehydrated or vaccum packed meals, my burner and spare gas every time we're on the mountain. Simply melt some of the abundant snow, cook your food, and hey presto, smiles all round. Use the left over water to re fill my thermos for a double whammy of warmth. Chocolate is always essential, though.

15 - Spare gloves
I was in Snow and Rock when I first started climbing and I overheard two staff talking about spare gloves, and the phrase 'have spares of your spares' has stuck with me. At least two pairs of warm, waterproof (and importantly dry!) outer gloves are always in my pack, along with a spare pair of liners. No matter what the day throws at me (or how many gloves I drop) I can keep my fingers dry and toasty.

The final product, everything in or on the pack

Not pictured, but always carried:

Snow shovel and probe
When going out me and Charlie always  have at least one shovel and probe between us, ideally with a probe each. The probes give us a chance of finding one another if either of us is caught in an avalanche and the shovel means we can dig out shelter in an emergency. A good metal collapsible design is the best, with a wide, flared blade for moving soft snow quickly.

Head Torch
A bare essential, but embarrassingly enough I can't find any of mine when I was setting up this photo. A good, comfortable head torch with fresh batteries and an adjustable beam is what I look for. Something like the Petzl Myo RXP is perfect. Oh, and always carry spare batteries.


So that's my gear. It's not an exhaustive list of everything I carry for every situation, it will change depending on what I'm doing and who I'm with and as I learn more about this whole climbing affair, but for now, I hope this satisfies some questions.

See you all soon! (I promise this time)

The Gear Spotter: Lowe Alpine Alpine Attack 45:55 Backpack Review

Introduction

I've seen in my time outdoors and in retail that packs, especially small-to-mid size packs are often underanalysed, when in truth they should be the cornerstone of a climber's gear. After all, they carry all your gear to and from the crag or up and down the hill - if they're badly designed or uncomfortable they can turn a good day bad and a bad day utterly awful.

Lowe Alpine is a solid, well-respected brand in the Outdoors world, building packs and clothing (intermittently) since the mid 1970's, drawing on experience gained by the Lowe family in climbing and alpinism. Today it's owned by Equip, a UK based company but still churns out extremely high quality gear for both outdoors people and photographers with their Lowe Pro range. Everything is designed to be sleek, go-faster, no massive frills and functional.

The Review

In use as a daysack on Etive Mor, Jan 2014

This pack has been with me everywhere since I bought it in mid-2013, from simple weekends at music festivals to carrying all my gear in Scotland and Wales. It's been used as a shopping bag and a haul sack, a pillow and a seat,as well as its intdended use as an alpinism pack. And after all this use and abuse over almost a full year, it barely looks used a day. The build quality and resilliance on this is absolutely astounding - even for a Lowe Alpine product. I had an Airzone 35:45 before that started to give way after about a year of continuous use - I've used this the same, if not harder and as I said, it barely looks like it's been taken out of the packaging. It's been used to carry gear and rack for a day on Ben Nevis and everything I need for a weekend's climbing and camping in Froggatt - there's nothing I've thrown at this that it hasn't been able to do.

The overall design of the pack is simple, streamlined and functional - a single large sack, a lid with two pockets and an excellent back system. The back itself isn't adjustable, so I'd recommend trying on in store before you buy - the 45:55 is longer and wider, for larger backs, whilst its smaller 35:45 brother is far more suited to narrower, shorter backs. If that doesn't work, they do a 'women's fit' ND version, try that on for size, it's just harder to find in store. On the standard size fits like a glove and I can honestly say it's never given me any kind of back pain, even with heavy weights and long distances. The straps are a little narrow, especially higher on the shoulder but give good stability when on the move, and the chest strap on the new (2014) version is, I think, far more prone to failure than the tried-and-tested version on my (2013) model but that's the only gripe on the load-bearing system I can think of. I'm yet to find anything that matches it as an alpinism pack. I would have preferred some extra external storage - some pockets or somesutch so I don't have to dive into my actual pack for a thermos or gloves, but I know why they haven't and I can live without them.

The headlocker system in
play - beautiful and simple

The buckle design, whilst not being ground breaking and innovative is extremely strong and effective. Unlike quick-release buckles that tend to have a tendency to fail at the worst time and let all the stuff stored under the lid spill down the side of a crag, the solid metal double-back buckle is absolutely bombproof and even comes in handy as an emergency bottle opener for summit brews! The webbing that makes up the rest of the buckle is solid, as would be expected, but the stitching and attachment points are all absolutely fantastic - almost up to the same kind of standard as used on climbing harnesses, so you can yank it down as hard as you want and it'll just ask for more - a good thing to have in a pack with floating lid capacity.

The lid itself is another work of simplicity and genius - a total floating piece, adjustable to an enormous degree to allow for the stuffing of those jackets, ropes, racks, shoes, small children and baguettes that just won't fit in the main sack. It could be potentially improved by making the lid totally removable without extensive fiddling to act as a simple sack, but that's a tiny gripe for such an impressive pack.

One item of note is the headlocker ice axe attachment system - it's simply brilliant, yet such a simple system that I'm honestly surprised that no one thought about it before. A single attachment bar passes through the leash hole that's found in the head of every axe and two attachments higher up. No matter how technical or simple the axe it'll fit, and it's not going anywhere unless you want it to. Tighten the pack up and the system is tight. Simple but brilliant.

Conclusions

Huge recommendation for the Alpine Attack packs - the one thing I'd say is to check what size you're using at the moment and work out if you need more, less, or the same space. They swallow a surprising amount of kit and when under-loaded the straps can sometimes can lack a bit of adjustment. But for the sheer amount of stuff you can...well stuff into one of these and the load remain stable and comfortable, I'd say it's definitely worth the investment. And just like any gear, look after it and it'll look after you - but this one can take a hell of a beating

Pros

+ Excellent back system for alpinism and climbing - hugs the load to the body

+ Fold-away waist strap padding makes it comfortable with and without harness

+ Headlocker ice axe system is both simple and incredibly effective

Cons

- Simple sack system lacks any exterior pockets

- Shoulder straps are a little too narrow for those with wider backs

For more in the Gear Spotter range of reviews, check them out here