Gear Junkie

One morning this winter, after waking in a tent pitched near the top of the world, Tyler Fish will check a compass and ski north toward mist undulating over open water. He will pull two sleds, each more than 100 pounds, to the water’s edge and gaze at a swath of Arctic Ocean deep and black between ice floes on route to the North Pole.

Fish, 34, of Ely, Minn., will then put on a waterproof suit. He’ll zip it up and ease into the ocean, the crush of cold closing in as he swims through saltwater, air pockets buoying a body backstroking across a void.

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Sugoi, a Vancouver-based apparel company, calls its pricey new Majik shell “an elite waterproof jacket that offers amazing breathability.” But after testing this aerobic-sports jacket for a month, I call that an exaggeration that verges on fib.

To the point: No other comparable jacket I have tested keeps so much moisture inside, collecting droplets of sweat along its smooth inner fabric to actually pool in the sleeves after 20 minutes on a run.

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“Don’t just sell shoes. Solve Problems.” That’s the pitch Somnio Running, a new company in Santa Cruz, Calif., gives retailers when talking about its line of high-end running shoes, which will be available in May 2009 for about $125.

Touted as the world’s first “truly customizable” running shoes, Somnio’s three debut models can be tweaked and adjusted in a shop to match a runner’s unique anatomy and biomechanics. “It’s like a bike fit for your feet,” said Sean Sullivan, the company founder and a bike industry veteran.

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The PrimaLoft-packed Nano Puff Pullover from Patagonia will not be available in stores until August 2009. But last month the company shipped me an early version of the lightweight coat to try out during a mountaineering trip in the Sierra Nevada Range.

Scrunch and squeeze this quilted coat down and it will compress inside its own chest pocket to create a grapefruit-size package that weighs less than a pound (10.3 ounces on my scale). But unfurl the top and it is a mid-weight insulating sweater/coat that is wind- and water-resistant and can be worn as a layer under a shell or alone as outerwear.

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• Field Test: Pearl Izumi SyncroSeek III WRX

http://thegearjunkie.com/gear-review-pearl-izumi-syncroseek-iii-wrx

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My story this week for Travel+Leisure — “World’s Greatest Diving Spots” — covers pristine coral reefs, kelp forests, and sunken battle ships from Mexico to the Marshall Islands.

I polled 10 veteran divers like Dan Orr, the CEO of Divers Alert Network, to pick their favorite dive spots around the planet. Orr’s choice, Fathom Five National Marine Park, is a preserve on Lake Huron four hours north of Toronto, where icy waters keep sunken ships for decades with little disturbance.

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Its design comes via inspiration from a bottle made almost 80 years ago. But in hand, the new SIGG Retro Heritage bottle, available next month for $24.99, is strangely similar to aluminum water bottles made today.

Indeed, save for its ribbed exterior and an old-fashioned cap, the Retro Heritage acts like a common one-liter aluminum bottle. It uses the same “water-based, non-toxic liner” as other bottles in the SIGG line, and the cap screws on and off with plastic threads when you need a drink.

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For three days last month I wallowed in the snows of Sequoia National Park in pursuit of Alta Peak, an 11,204-foot pyramid of rock in California’s Sierra Nevada Range. The trip, organized by REI Adventures, served as a proving ground for several new pieces of outdoors gear as my group kicked and trudged, ice axes in hand, to the top of the mountain.

Snowshoes allowed locomotion through new powder snow on the six-mile hike in, where we wore heavy packs heading toward a basecamp. Except for me, the group — a guide and five clients — choose MSR’s Denali Evo Ascent Snowshoes, which are about 22 inches long and 8 inches wide. The MSRs worked well on wind-blown snow and crust, but broke through in the powder, forcing the group to inefficiently plod and post-hole along.

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In the march toward making the world’s most minimal multi-tool, Leatherman last year unveiled its Skeletool, a compact model with just three implements: A blade, a pliers, and a bit driver. This spring, the company will unveil a tool even more pared-down.

The Leatherman Freestyle includes a blade and a pliers — and nothing else. It is slightly smaller and lighter than the Skeletool, and it has a similar look. But the handle has been changed and the company removed the screwdriver feature and the carabiner clip.

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Push in the small black knob and twist. That’s all it takes to operate the Boa Lacing System, a tightening mechanism that employs a reel and clicking gears to retract and cinch a thin cable in a tactile procedure touted to “render shoelaces obsolete.”

Indeed, over the past five years, Boa Technology Inc. (www.boatechnology.com), which has offices in Denver and Tokyo, has partnered with companies to add its namesake technology to products ranging from snowboard boots to bike shoes.

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Nine international teams made the trip last month to southern Chile to start the 2009 Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race. Ten days later, one team had swum for their lives in an icy river, one lived off wild berries after getting lost for days, one was beaten by a swarm of bugs, and only three truly made it to the finish line. Welcome to the toughest and wildest race on Earth…

The Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race sits at the pinnacle of adventure racing, a sport where teams battle through wilderness courses with trekking, paddling, mountain biking, and backcountry navigation. This year’s race — February 10 – 20 from Torres del Paine National Park to Cape Froward on the tip of the South American continent — put competitors in some of the world’s deepest wilderness with only a map and a compass to guide for days on end between five checkpoints spread across a 590-kilometer course.

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Each winter, untold thousands of runners head indoors to train on treadmills and tracks when the temps turn cold. But running outdoors year-round is possible. With the right running apparel and gear, you can make winter running not only bearable but comfortable — in any temperature. Here are 10 tips on how to do winter running right.

1. Trail Shoes
Trail-running shoes with aggressive tread and water-resistant uppers are the preferred footwear for many winter runners. Unlike road shoes, many trail-running models from companies like Montrail, Salomon, La Sportiva, Inov-8, and others protect feet from wind and moisture. Plus, they add grip for variable conditions underfoot — from snow to mud to slush.

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Matt Eder’s baptism by fire into the world of mountaineering began in mid-February when he travelled from sea level in his home town of Portland, Ore., to Sequoia National Park in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, pulling on a heavy pack, cinching snowshoes tight, and trekking off into the wild. As the winner of the Gear Junkie’s Choose-Your-Adventure Sweepstakes, Eder picked REI Adventures’ Sequoia Winter Mountaineering Clinic from five possible adventure-travel destinations. “I’m a resort skier who’s always been interested in the backcountry and out-of-bounds,” Eder said.

Trip members Courtney Coe (in front) and Heather Gough at about 9,500 feet on Alta Peak

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It looks like an outhouse made of nylon. Or else it’s a strange tent for tall people. But the Sqivvy, a new shelter product from Logan, Utah, isn’t a tent at all. You can’t comfortably sleep in it. Pop it open and stake it out, and you’ll notice an oversight rendering the shelter all but obsolete for camping: There is no roof.

The Sqivvy, which costs $89.95 and is sold at www.sqivvy.com, is marketed as a “portable pop-up privacy shelter.” Its genesis was with a trail runner who needed to change clothes in a public place. He was sick of pulling on shorts while hiding in his car. “I had a eureka moment,” said Paul Vaslet, company founder.

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Guide David Cressman nearing the summit of Alta Peak

REI Adventures’ Sequoia Winter Mountaineering Clinic is a three-day trip that combines instruction in snow camping, mountaineering, and backcountry travel skills with the ascent of a bonafide 11,000-foot peak. Our group, including Choose-Your-Adventure winner Matt Eder, his friend, Heather Gough, guide David Cressman, and two REI corporate adventurers, Courtney Coe and Tim Loftus, trudged under heavy packs and in deep snow for miles each day. We dug out tent platforms, made a kitchen in the snow, and ate dinner each night under an utter black Sierra sky.

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Sequoia Winter Mountaineering Clinic

The Sequoia Winter Mountaineering Clinic, which is offered by REI Adventures throughout the winter each year, combines a serious three-day adventure with onsite instruction on snow camping, mountaineering, and winter backcountry travel skills. Navigation and route-finding, medicine for mountaineering, ice ax self-arrest, crampon use, and basic rope team travel are additional highlighted items on the syllabus for the trip.

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Coghlan’s Survival Kit-in-a-Can is a quirky product. It is a fun gift, a tin of trinkets and outdoors doodads that pour forth out of a type of vessel most often associated with sardines. Inside, there are “38 essential items for warmth, shelter, and energy in life-threatening situations.”

Indeed, in the tight space of the can you find a tiny compass, fire starters, utility wire, waterproof matches, fishing line, hooks, a needle, duct tape, a signal mirror, a whistle, and other items to help keep you safe in a worst-case wilderness scenario. Strangely, there’s also chewing gum and a single piece of hard candy.

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It was a bright day in south Florida, Miami’s glass skyline rippling in heat over turquoise water, when the film crew from Minnesota walked onto the beach. Speedboats tore through water offshore. A wakeboarder gripped a towline, carving a turn and popping to take air off an ocean wave. “It was all a bit surreal,” said Noah Ferche, who at the time was a college junior.

The venue, a sports festival last April called BoardUp Miami, had hired Ferche and three friends, all amateur video producers and wakeboarding enthusiasts, to oversee filming for the weekend’s action-sports lineup. With little more than a MySpace page, the group had caught enough attention to be contracted and flown south for the gig. “BoardUp set us thinking that maybe we can make a career out of this after all,” said Ferche, 22, whose hobby as a videographer stretches back to junior high school.

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Balancing downhill power and performance with acceptable cross-country capability has long been a battle for backcountry-skiing connoisseurs. You need speed on the flats and control when you’re going down, a free heel to stride, and power to turn and stop where the mountains tip steep.

All these requirements do not add up to any whole. Despite decades of tweaking and the development of hundreds of products, a single system for all snowy terrain has never come to light.

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Go to the full review here: http://thegearjunkie.com/gear-review-recrepair-emergency-patch-kit

Rec’Repair Emergency Patch Kit

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