Posts Tagged by 4-hammers
Cicerone – Moveable Feasts
It takes some going over and will sit on your bedside table for ages and keep you thinking – but it’s well worth it, even if you get a few golden nuggets which will make your camping trip more comfy and tastier. A great gift for difficult ‘i do outdoors’ family members, as it will keep them happy for hours.
Read more…
Ohyo – Collapsible Drinking Bottle
The Wife is a particularly bad user of bottled water. We must have 10 perfectly good reusable bottles in our cupboard, but she still feels the need to purchase a litre of some posh french water whenever she drives anywhere. It drives me potty, so I am trying to stash the handy compressed Ohyo bottles shown above in her car as an aide-memoir to save the planet. Read more…
Merrell – Chameleon 5 Mid Ventilator GTX Carbon
Merrell categorise these as a ‘high-speed backpacking shoe’. Inside they boast a Gore-Tex membrane and a support insole described as ‘suitable for carrying a light pack’. Outside they’ve got tough laces, a sturdy outer construction with breathable mesh and a tough heel to withstand kicking them off at the pub every day. On the bottom a thick and chunky Vibram sole does the business well. Read more…
Platypus – Sprinter XT 25L Backpack
Being 5’9” the 20” M/L backpack was a perfect fit, resting snuggly on my hips, and the combination of back padding and internal frame was enough to cushion the pack against my back without over insulating it. The Sprinter is available in two torso lengths so can be fitted to a variety of body shapes – and whilst it’s not a specific women’s pack I had no trouble with its fit. Read more…
Berghaus – Expeditor Waterproof Hiking Boots
At £100 for the leather boot, Berghaus seems to be targetting the novice to intermediate outdoorsman really aggressively. Their choice to eschew expensive membranes from GORE or EVENT has resulted in a really functional and stylish boot at a pretty competitive price. So far, so good for this boot test with no problems to report on general mooching, dog-walking and short-sharp lowland hikes Read more…
Smartwool – PhD Smartloft Divide Top
I’ve been testing one in a less garish all-black, but the yellow shows up better in photos. The idea is that you get a full-zip long-sleeved midlayer which has the benefit of keeping your chest (and therefore your core) warm when you’re running in to the wind. The nylon panelling is fairly windproof, and also coated in a durable water repellent so it sheds drizzle well, and it’s insulated with a layer of warm wool which continues to insulate you when the nylon eventually lets water through, or your sweat saturates everything. Read more…
Cicerone – Indoor Climbing (book)
Understanding those things which are a bit alien to other walks of life is made easier by this book’s thorough work-through of the how’s and why’s of each of the essential items in a climber’s kit. Knowing which kit I will, and more importantly won’t need before I venture out to purchase them is a great feeling. Read more…
Grilliput – Portable grill / barbeque
The Grilliput has the advantage over those throw-away barbeques in that it will last forever, and it’s a great talking point too. At £30 it’s a bit of a bargain for those of you who love to barbeque, and it would fit in to any situation from festivals to glamping.
Read more…
Mammut – Bask Pants
I’ve very much enjoyed (and am continuing to enjoy) wearing the Bask Pants. They serve well in almost all conditions from searching through to more formal gatherings. However, I have found one down-side, and that is that curiously, they’re a total sod to get clean. They seem to attract dirt, and getting mud out of them during a normal washing cycle is unlikely. Mine have a permacover of mud around the ankles. Read more…
Berghaus – Popena Women’s down jacket
The heat is provided by 90% down and 10% feather in a 650 fill, which is certainly enough to deal with most cold days, but a little thin for true mountain top or arctic expeditions perhaps. To keep that fill in place, the Popena is stitched in little pockets like you see on a sleeping bag and Berghaus have used these sewn lines to accentuate a feminine look to good effect. Read more…
Berghaus – Cristallo Softshell Jacket
I’ve used Gore’s WINDSTOPPER fabric for many years on the motorbike, where you’re subjected to constant cold blasts whilst not doing much physical activity. I don’t think I’ve ever been as cold as on a few winter rides I can remember, and I can attest to the difference that the fabric can make in helping you conserve heat. The difference it makes on the hill, particularly when you’ve been walking uphill and get to the summit, stop and cool down rapidly is impressive. It really does work very well. Read more…
Rud – I-SOCK snow and ice shoe covers
It’s the first day of snow down here in GWAville, and the I-Socks have coped admirably on the light dusting of slippery snow. RUD themselves say that the I-Sock is best on ice, where it really does excel over the competition. As soon as we have some testing done on ice, we’ll update this review. Read more…
Wild Stripes – Adult Zippy top
On a recent trip around Europe I was often found to be singing “Last night a DJ saved my life” (try and get that tune of your head now!) but I was supplementing the words to “Last night a Wild Stripe saved my life from a frozen death.’ Read more…
Brasher – Supalite 2 GTX Walking Boots
Brasher has managed to justify the name Supalite by shaving off enough of the boot to bring them down to 1122g a pair. Meaningless to most of us, but a real-world comparison would be that they’re 430g less heavy than my vaguely similarly targetted Anatom Q2 boots. That’s considerably more than a can of Coke in difference. Read more…
Armadillo – Cougar Merino T-shirt
The Cougar T-shirt is a semi-fitted design with a front and rear panel, and a separate sculpted shoulder panel which causes it to sit squarely on your shoulders and make you look rather… buff. It also means that there are no seams up on your shoulders to abrade if you’re wearing a pack all day. Read more…
Sprayway – Leftfield Gore Tex Jacket
It makes me feel like I should be shooting things and surveying my land. It makes me want to keep a pack of hounds in the outhouse and carry a hip flask. It’s refreshingly different from most of the other Gore Tex jackets on the market at the moment Read more…
Victorinox – Huntsman Swiss Army Knife
This was the exact same model of swiss army knife that I’d had all those years ago and coveted until the red bits fell off, the toothpick was lost and the mechanism was so full crud that it probably formed a home for several species of bacteria unknown to science. Read more…
