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The Big Agnes Platinum series tent use the lightest of materials to get down to astonishingly low weights at 1113grams for a three person, two skin, two door, spacious shelter. My main reason for taking this tent on the Tour of the Matterhorn was to assess its robustness, not so much a long-term durability test but an out-of-the-box assessment of whether the tent was up to the rigours …

With two glacier crossings on the Tour of the Matterhorn crampons came highly recommended, but they would only be used for a few hours on two of the days and both glaciers were at relatively shallow gradients, there was very little steep terrain to cover. Bearing all this in mind we decided on the Petzl Irvis Hybrid crampons which at 536grams for the pair weren’t too onerous beari …

I was lucky enough to get a chance to review a pre-production pair of the new Gram-counter Gear Ultra-Carbon Trekking poles, amazingly light at just 125grams per pole, actually the lightest true trekking pole we have available, and of all the products I tested on the Tour of the Matterhorn these were the most remarkable. Note the pre-production poles I had are identical to the actual …

Sea to Summit have thought about the design of the Alto tents very carefully trying not to recreate what’s already available and fans of the brand will not be disappointed with this tent. We took the Plus version out for a three-day backpacking trip at the beginning of April when the weather was very cold but quite clear. The cold conditions (sub zeroC) required largish sleeping bags an …

When Nigor folded as a company the product designs were taken up by Bach, already a well-known rucksack brand. Bach has taken the designs and added these largely unchanged shelters to its offering. A key USP for Nigor was the use of ‘Nylon 6.6’ as opposed to standard Nylon 6 used by most manufacturers and Bach has continued with this type of nylon. It is significantly better than the …

Using trekking poles splits the load between your legs and arms, it's not an even split, your knees still take the lion's share of the stress of walking and carrying a load, but by transferring at least some of this to the arms your legs get some relief and at the end of a long day they aren't as tired as they would have been.

20 years ago, whether you were a man or a woman you bought a ‘sleeping bag’, these days there are gender specific sleeping bags available so you would buy either a man’s sleeping bag or a woman’s – or would you? We’re not sure, so this article is about the differences, why is a woman’s sleeping bag different, and are those differences important to you? We have female customers who buy m …

Sea to Summit have thought about the design of the  Alto tent very carefully, trying not to recreate what's already available and fans of the brand will not be disappointed with this tent. We took the Alto TR2 Plus version out for a three-day backpacking trip at the beginning of April when the weather was very cold but quite clear. The cold conditions (sub zero) required largis …

Costs As always we give details of what we spent for the whole trip, due to accommodation costs it could be done more cheaply or more expensively depending on the choices you make. Spending Essential Insurance Mark £57 Insurance Jacqui £57 Lateral Fl …

Getting there We left the house at 7.30am on the 17th September and drove to Manchester Airport for a 9.00am Easyjet flight to Geneva. Progress through the airport was fairly normal, I think fewer travellers offset any additional time for Covid checks and the flight left on time at 11.00am. A new policy at Easyjet specified cabin luggage as only 45 x 30 x 20cm so we booked a hold bag …

In September 2021 I would have loved to travel to Nepal, I’ve backpacked in many places around the world but never been there – it’s a serious omission that I was determined to sort out, but that was before the pandemic. September 2021 then was allocated to a trip to Scotland. In August a window of opportunity opened to visit Switzerland, my partner and I were both double jabbed and were ther …

The Stargazer Bivy has made my bivying experiences much more enjoyable than with my older, basic unhooped bivy. I think a hooped bivy is more than worth the extra weight penalty for the additional room and comfort it gives you by keeping the fabric away from your face. The intelligent design means that the angle of the hoop gives the bivy a reasonably stable structure. Using the 2 peg i …