Now! Climbing

After spending a month in Red Rocks around my AMGA Rock Guide Exam, I’ve had some time to beat up some gear and find out what works and what doesn’t. Here’s my two cents on a few pieces I brought along and still like.

CiloGear 30L WorkSack $125, www.cilogear.com - Okay, so you’re a climber, right? That probably means you have a lot of gear. Actually, it definitely means you’ve got a lot of gear. You’ve got a quiver of everything, right? You haven’t got a pepper grinder or a clean towel, but you’ve got five pairs of boots (is it warm? cold? wet? hard? icy?), five pairs of rock shoes (is it thin? edgy? steep? crack? long? alpine? will I be wearing socks?), a selection of tools, crampons, skis, jackets, pants, gloves and accessories for just about everything we do in the mountains, but I find one of the things I have the most of is packs, and I’ll bet it’s about the same for a lot climbers out there. We have packs that range from tiny to huge, from the fanny pack to the haulbag, and from the fast and light to the decidedly heavy. Okay, but you’re a rock climber too sometimes, right? Right. And that means most of the time you couldn’t really care less what kind of pack you throw your kit in to get you to the crag, assuming of course that its big enough for your rack, the rope, some shoes, food and water, the six pack and maybe (depending if you’re a sport or a trad climber), a place to clip your flip-flops or your helmet on the outside. We don’t really care what pack does the job most of the time as we’re just carrying our kit for the duration of the hike in, which is usually sub hour-long, then ditching our packs at the base of the crag and going rock climbing. No problem. All we’re doing with the pack is walking. But what happens when that’s not the case? What happens when our pack needs start to more accurately reflect our needs when we’re out alpine climbing? What if we’re going to walk to the route, but it might take a while, and it might involve some scrambling or some bushwhacking, and what if we’re not only not going to have the luxury of carrying that six pack or changing into flips, but we’re actually going to have to climb with our packs, and climb hard at that? Whether you’re on an exam or not, if you’re heading out for a long one in the canyons, chances are that you’re probably going to be looking at exactly this situation. Epinephrine? Yep. Black Orpheus? Yep. Hot Flash? Yep. On at least half the classics around Red Rocks and everywhere else where the routes are long, you’re probably not going to be coming back to your pack at the end of the day, you’re going to be carrying it up and over with you, and so you, or at least I, want it to be a few things. I want it to be light. I’m not sendy enough to want the ultra-heavyweight champion of backpacks hanging off me when I’m trying to bear down on some delicate crux or some desperado overhang. I want it to be streamlined and simple. Again, I don’t give a hoot about a water bottle holder or a crampon pocket or a cushy hipbelt when they’re stuck on a flake and I’m trying not to tear them off as I haul my kit through a chimney or trying to find my headlamp as I top out at dusk. Lastly, and I know this one might sound obvious, but yet it seems to elude a lot of pack manufacturers, I want it to be just big enough to get all of my stuff inside so that the scrub oak isn’t trying to tear holes in my jacket (and the Euros aren’t laughing at my junkshow) on the way in, but be small and compressible enough to be reasonable on my back when I’m climbing. Sounds simple right? Try finding it. Sure, your IceSac might be your kindred spirit in the alpine, but do you really feel strong enough to want 50 liters of Cordura on your back while you’re fiddling in some tricky wire on pitch 12? Sure, your Bullet pack might be the shiz when your tennies and your extra liter of water are sitting at the base of the route or when your hike in didn’t involve having your gear being pulled to pieces by defensive plant life, but really, how comfy is that two hour hike in with your harness on and that rope tied around your shoulder? Not that great in either case, right? Okay – so neither a 50 nor 16L pack seems to be the answer, one too big and heavy, the other just not quite big enough. Enter the CiloGear 30L Worksack. (Here’s how pumped I am about it.) Before I proceed, I’ll admit right now that my opinion is biased. I’ve been enjoying an affair with my 40B Worksack for over a year now, I live and work in Oregon where the packs are produced, I like the fact that they’re handmade in Portland, my geographical proximity gives me access to pestering the boys at CiloGear whenever I feel the need, and we’re friends. BUT, I will also say that our relationship started with my trying out the packs, and if I didn’t like them, I’d say so. Okay. So with that disclaimer out of the way, here’s what I like about the pack: It solves my long rock climb problem. All of those things I just said I was looking for in a climbing pack, it does. If you’re unfamiliar with Cilo’s designs in general, they’re all built specifically with the climber in mind, and that’s all the company does – build climbing packs. When I first headed over to Cilo HQ to meet Graham Williams, the owner and brain behind the operations, and to pick up a couple packs, I was advised to have a bit of time on my hands in case we got to talking, and we did in fact do that. About an hour and a half later, I left with a greater understanding of materials, fit, function, the “radical wedge design,” anatomy, pack construction, pack theory, packing theory, military engineering, fabric development, sourcing, supplying, cutting, sewing, marketing and just about everything else you could possibly connect with the production of a climbing pack. I think it would probably be fair to describe Graham in complimentary terms as a mad scientist of backpacks. Climbing packs, it seems, are what he’s thinking about, almost nonstop and to such an extent that I take a great comfort in knowing that the guy who made my pack put some (understatement) thought into it. Anyway, the idea with all of CiloGear’s packs is that they’re supposed to be light, strong, and purpose built. Through an ingenious (if admittedly sometimes a little complicated) system of floating straps and attachment points, all of Cilo’s packs are built to accommodate and comfortably carry big loads when they’re full, and to compress down to make a sleek little pack for the climb when high volume isn’t desirable. Thus, I’ve found that in my 30L, I’m able to get 2 or 3 liters of water, a stuffsack of food for the day, a 60m x 9.2mm rope, a harness with biners and belay device etc., a pair of climbing shoes, a small first aid kit, a climbing knife, a headlamp, a jacket, and thanks to the huge expansion sleeve (see “radical wedge design”) on top – my helmet. All inside the pack. With the addition of the internal “ninja pocket” to hold the small things, I’ve dispensed with the lid. I’ve also removed the hip belt and found the pack carries just fine without it. And, when I’m guiding, I’m also able to fit the rack and the rope in there, only occasionally having to put my helmet on the outside, depending on how much other junk I’m carrying. Most of the time though, everything I want to go climb a long route is in there, and my back and my ego enjoy this fact considerably. I have the pack rigged with two compression straps on each side, and when I’m kitted out to climb, I strap the pack down at the bottom and down at the top and it carries beautifully. Hauls alright through chimneys too (it’s got two haul points). Mine has a few holes in it by now, but I’ve been using last year’s V3, which was made out of 210d SilNylon Cordura and which has been replaced by the V4, constructed throughout the body with 210d Dyneema Ripstop and a new sleeve material, which should solve any complaints that may have arisen with the older model. Stripped down to just the pack with its removable foam bivy pad as suspension and rigged with only two compression straps, my bag weighs in at only 22oz or 1.38lbs (625g). Even fully loaded with hip belt and lid, the pack still only tops out at 1.84 lbs, or 835g. Look around and you’ll find comparable packs start to look heavy, and they certainly don’t play the game as well as this one. Oh, and everything that makes this such a great pack for long rock climbs? They work in the alpine too.

La Sportiva Exum Pro $95, www.sportiva.com - For the last few seasons, my approach shoe of choice has been La Sportiva’s Exum Ridge, and over the course of three pairs of them, I’ve liked them quite a bit. When Sportiva decided to switch them up this summer and release the updated Exum Pro in their place, I was a little curious about what changes they might have made. Before I get into what those are, let me just briefly outline my thoughts on approach shoes. It seems to me that there are a lot of demands we put on our approach shoes; we all want them to hike well, be comfy as sneakers for the way in with enough tread and support to handle miles and miles of cross country abuse, on and off trail, and to perform in wet and dry conditions with equal aplomb. Some of us even want to be able to strap aluminum crampons on them for those approaches that cross snow but don’t demand a boot. At the same time, we also want them to be sensitive and sticky enough to scramble well and even climb rock up to 5.8 or 5.9, and we also want them to do all of these things and be light when they’re clipped to our harness or in our pack. We also want them to be inexpensive, and to top it all off, we want them to be durable too. Expecting one shoe to be all these things has always seemed a bit of a stretch to me, and so it makes sense, as in all things, to have a quiver of tennies for different occasions. But what if you don’t want a quiver? What if you only want one? Well, then you’ve got a question to ask about whether you plan on climbing more or hiking more in your approach shoes, or, if you’re coming to Red Rocks, you’re probably like me and plan on doing both. In comes the Exum Pro, a shoe that, in my opinion, does a great job of doing everything you want an approach shoe to do. No, it’s not as light or as sendy as, say, the Five Ten Daescent, nor is it as burly as the Camp Four, but with a pair weighing in at 14.3 oz it’s light enough for most occasions, and with a real heel and a Frixion XF Dot Rubber / Trail Tread Hybrid sole underfoot, it’s both grippy and sticky enough for most purposes. It’s a shoe that can hike the hour and a half in every day, send the scramble and the 5.4 approach pitch, and then weigh less than a pound in my pack until it’s time to slip em on again for the last few 5.easy pitches and the descent. My problems with the last model were that they wore out quickly, both in terms of the rubber underfoot, and in high use areas on the upper, specifically the outside ball of the foot area. After a month in Red Rocks (aka The-Land-of-Shoe-Eating-Sandpaper-Rocks), I can say that the new rubber formulation underfoot is definitely a little less sticky when its really pushed, but it also seems to be way more durable. Despite my day-in day-out abuse, my shoes show far less wear than the previous model would have under similar circumstances. In the update, Sportiva also reinforced the area around the ball of the foot with something they call UreTech, where previously it was simply mesh. I will admit that I have torn the stitching off that area already, but it seems to be holding up far far better than the mesh would have. I suspect also that the stitching’s failings will not actually effect the shoe’s longevity as I still have to wear through some pretty burly material, and with the sole set to last a while too, we’ll just have to wait and see. It also seems worth mentioning that this model seems to fit just a tiny bit snugger than the last one, though it still has a shape that’s more accommodating to a wider foot than most approach rigs I’ve tried. As is my habit, I removed the standard insole and replaced it with a pair from Superfeet, which I can’t recommend enough. All in all, I say yes, and with a pricetag under $100, it’s not that hard to say.

A few other gear thoughts: The Outdoor Research Marvel Jacket is perfect for Red Rocks or anytime you think it might get a little chilly and a little windy in the shade, but it’s probably not going to rain. My Marvel had just the right balance of warmth and wind-resistance to be the only set of sleeves I’d bring along most days. The jacket is not on offer from OR this season, but you can find one for a bargain online or pick up the Anomaly Jacket for $99 at www.outdoorresearch.com which I suspect is its replacement. I also loved how light my pack was on those long days when it was filled with a featherweight rack of Black Diamond C4s and C3s, all racked on shiny, light, 28g Oz carabiners (www.bdel.com). Combined with skinny Dynex slings, it was amazing to see just how light our racks could get these days. I’m sold.

The only negative bit of gear reviewing I have is that while the product is absolutely delicious,the actual bottle of Eau de Vie de Pomme $39.95 from Oregon’s own Clear Creek Distillery is simply not durable enough to survive my forgetting its presence in my duffel bag, and while it survived the trip from Bend to Vegas, it was unable to make it to family vacation in Death Valley. A damn shame. The spirit never made it to my father, and now I have to do laundry.

C’est la guerre.