It was exciting news when I saw the ads for the new Petzl Elia helmet, encouraging Steven Segal to re-grow his manly locks because this was the perfect brain bucket for him. I, like many, laughed at the creativity of the marketing campaign, while at the same time was intrigued by the idea of a helmet that you could rock a pony tail in.

I had good intentions. All of my appointments would be in the morning and early afternoon, leaving the evenings free for some climbing. Somehow the OR Show just has a way o f taking over, however, and climbing didn’t happen. We did get to check out a lot of the latest and greatest coming out [...]

To an outside observer, this would look really strange. There we were, at about 13,000′ on the Southwest Ridge of Mount Sneffels, and Jeff Achey and I were actually putting big rocks into our packs for the remainder of the ascent. We were on a press trip, to try out the new climbing packs from Black Diamond that will launch in spring 2011.

All I can say for Petzl is that they sure stay tight lipped over there until they are ready to launch something. I asked about a GriGri that would work with skinny ropes at the last Outdoor Retailer show and they told me nothing was in the works. Well, it looks like maybe we’ll get [...]

Many years ago now, I came out to Colorado for a summer of fun in Estes Park. Not knowing where I’d want to climb, I bought a copy of the Rock Climbing Colorado guidebook, as it seemed to have good info on many different areas. Times have changed, and guidebooks have come a long way since that original edition. Full color photos are the norm, with heaps of useful info guaranteed to get you climbing more and fumbling around looking for routes less. And so the old standard of Rock Climbing Colorado has finally been upgraded into the 21st century.

I have a love/hate relationship with specialized gear. The simple part of me wants one piece of equipment for a given task, something that works well in all conditions. The realist, however, knows that what’s good in one situation doesn’t work well in another. Sometimes I need a pack that can carry everything but the kitchen sink, and sometimes I just need a little guy for some local sport cragging. And that’s where the Black Diamond Demon comes in.

The perfect Indian Creek shoe is an elusive thing. You want it to be comfortable, so when your jamming your toes into cracks the pain is minimized as much as possible, but not so sloppy that you can’t milk the occasional foot hold for all it’s worth. You also want them to be durable, because they are going to take a serious beating if you’re spending a significant amount of time there. The new Five Ten Grandstone combines all these things into what I think is pretty close to the perfect crack climbing shoe.

The folks at Metolius are a crafty bunch. It seems like they are always searching for the next best thing, or how to make existing products that much better. The Master Cams were huge, and then of course we got Offset Master Cams, which fill a small but important niche on any trad rack. Now come two more additions we like: the Long Draw and FS Mini Carabiners.