Garmont Cosmos

Garmont’s new Cosmos delivers a perhaps unprecedented combination of skiing and touring performance, at a marvelously low weight. I’ll admit it: where Alpine Touring ski boots are concerned, I’ve long considered myself a Garmont man. Their shells have always seemed the most Lange-ish to me, in terms of fit and feel, which remains my gold standard for downhill skiing performance (more…)

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Black Diamond Twilight

The water-resistant/breathable Twilight replaces Black Diamond’s Winter Bivy as the lightest bivy sack in the Black Diamond collection. The major difference, aside from a color change, is a switch to ‘NanoShield’ fabric (from Epic). We also get the addition of a mesh over-the-face panel for bug protection. What is NanoShield? I believe it is basically a re-branded Epic, with the primary difference (more…)

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Mountain Hardwear Direkt 2

Mountain Hardwear’s new Direkt 2 is a single-wall tent built in the style of Black Diamond’s Firstlight, but updated in a way that makes it both more and less useful. The twin headlines here are a crazy-low measured weight of two pounds, nine point five ounces (tent and poles), plus a completely 100% seam-sealed single-wall body that once and for all puts to rest any worries of waterproofness. The bad news (more…)

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AKU SL Trek GTX

Aku’s SL Trek GTX is not the boot I was expecting. At two pounds, 15.5 ounces per pair (US 9.5), the SL Trek is light but certainly not ultralight. In fact, if you’re looking for a light GTX hiker in the class of something like the Vasque Breeze, the SL Trek will likely perplex you. This is a beefy boot with a formidably stiff sole—stiff to enough to absolutely impact your stride. Based on its design and construction (more…)

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Sony RX100

Yes, Sony’s RX100 is a revolutionary digital camera—but is it really the best compact in the world, as many reviewers are now proclaiming? If you’re only interested in bright-light image quality, I think the answer has to be a resounding Yes. The RX100 puts a next-generation 1.0 inch, 20 megapixel CMOS sensor and a branded Carl Zeiss lens in a relatively compact 4″ x 2 3/8″ x 1 7/16″ body (more…)

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North Face Verto S4K

The North Face was tired of seeing their elite athletes in other makers’ boots, so they decided to make a boot of their own. The result of that effort is the Verto S4K GTX. The Verto is a technical/mountaineering boot very much in the class of La Sportiva’s popular Trango S Evo. In-hand the Verto S4K feels quite a bit beefier than the Trango, but it turns out they’re almost identical in weight: 3 pounds, 6.6 ounces per pair (more…)

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The Contour+

The Contour Plus (or Contour+) is Contour’s flagship helmet camcorder, offering a wider 170° angle of view, wireless streaming capability, and a sharper lens. Think of the Plus as a horizontal rather than vertical evolution—particularly where picture quality is concerned. Compared to Contour’s earlier top-of-the-line 1080p camera, image quality is only modestly better and in many cases (more…)

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Thermarest XLite

Thermarest’s Neoair XLite replaces the original Neoair pad, offering upgraded warmth (from a spec value of R2.4 to R3.2) at a slightly lower weight—one ounce less overall. The weight differential isn’t really big news, but the added warmth is: an R-value of 3.2 is pushing into the 4-season category, and even for 3-season use, you will absolutely notice and enjoy the extra warmth (more…)

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Ortovox 3+

I say Ortovox’s 3+ is one of the best choices in today’s crop of avalanche transceivers. The class of 2012 offers us a lot of innovation, but it also offers a lot of complexity. Leave the complexity to others (if you don’t explicitly need it) and go with the Ortovox’s effective fusion of simplicity and technology. Key features of the three-antenna 3+ include the beacon’s self-orienting sensor (more…)

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Black Diamond Mission

The big news with the climbing-oriented Mission 50 pack is that it employs Black Diamond’s patent-pending ‘reACTIV’ suspension system. ReACTIV suspensions, and the more aggressive ‘ErgoACTIV’, are designed to allow the pack to move naturally while you’re walking by adding a mechanical pivot to the frame-hip belt interface. In other words, the load is allowed to swivel (more…)

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