Blog

The Mountain PeopleTheir story began in 1981 in the attic of a small, terraced house in Sheffield where Rab Carrington made the first sleeping bag to bear his name. Hand-stitched and devised with his own ingenious eye, Rab's experience from years spent in the mountains was apparent in his designs, and soon there was popular demand from Rab's friends and the growing local climbing community.But thi …

The Rab Infinity jacket is around the largest and heaviest jacket we would look to pack within our kit, able to combat the coldest temperatures you will most likely face in the UK. Containing a substantial 250 grams of 800FP R.D.S Certified European Goose Down, with a total weight of 730 grams (size medium), this amounts to a big jacket to be relied on in the harshest conditions providing instant …

Gaiters are an item of outdoor kit that easily divide opinion. Personally, we don’t tend to use gaiters in the warmer months apart from if travelling along particularly deep boggy routes in which we know many hours will be spent in this environment. Winter on the other hand is where a pair of gaiters becomes invaluable, keeping snow and ice from entering your boots and importantly acting as an ext …

Out of all the equipment we have received of late the Rab Kaon jacket has certainly been most interesting and, at the same time conflicting. First of all, let’s not mess around, this is one fine looking jacket. In Dark Sulphur, with its small panel design, it’s an eye-catching garment but that’s not to say this is a fashion piece. This is a fully technical jacket packed full of innovative design e …

Rab’s Vapour Rise collection has a strong reputation that has been a mainstay amongst the outdoor community for many years now. Three new Vapour Rise jackets have been recently introduced with us receiving the middle weight option, the VR Alpine Light Jacket. Rab state that "our VR Alpine Light Jacket’s approach to insulation is built on two years of applied field testing with the Association of M …

Rab’s new range of waterproof shells are more than just a slight tweak in design. Throughout the years Rab have become common place for use of fabrics such as eVent, Pertex, NeoShell, including a few of their own such as ProFlex which we reviewed last year. What is surprising is this is Rab’s first partnership with Gore-Tex bringing out a range of high-performance clothing. This is a bold but brav …

Having been big fans of Rab’s Torque pants and jacket we were very keen to see if the shorts lived up to the same dependable reputation that has made this range so successful. What makes them instantly noticeable as part of the Torque range is the use of the Matrix double weave stretch material. Rab say that “although primarily designed for summer ascents in warm climates, their value as a general …

Featured as part of Rab's new Skyline range the Pacer Jacket was built to be a very lightweight and compact option for fast movement in mountain environments. At 240 grams it certainly fits the brief and packing small into its included stuff sac it is almost unnoticeable amongst our pack.

Rab’s Guide Gloves are popular among winter mountaineers throughout the UK. When receiving the Guide 2 GTX we were obviously eager to see how this new model matched up against our trusted older pairs. Rab’s new partnership with Gore-Tex is the obvious stand out change, plus the use of their warm waterproof technology which claims to be highly insulated, waterproof, windproof, breathable, and guara …

The first point we need to raise for this review is that with receiving a prototype we can only write about the Ultra Mythic 180 in this current form. We would expect the final product to have slight differences in weight and design. Also, the EN temperature ratings are currently only estimates and taken using fill weight just below 180g.We had heard rumors that Rab were due to launch a new line o …

The instantly noticeable feature when receiving the Kinetic Alpine jacket and pants is certainly the fabric. Rab’s own Proflex fabric has the feel of a softshell yet claims to be fully waterproof. Rab explain “the outer and inner layers of Proflex are engineered” with high gauge knits – “the outer treated for water repellency and the inner wicking to move moisture.” It’s certainly true that the Ki …

Two members of the Ultralight team got to test the Rab Pulsar Down Jacket that was new for Autumn/Winter 20.As the newest piece of ultralight down insulation from Rab, I received the new Pulsar with high expectations. I’m pleased to report that it has proved to be a fantastic winter jacket, a versatile all-rounder that has quickly become essential to any and all adventures. I’ve personally us …