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Criterion has two particularly lightweight ranges of sleeping bags of interest to backpackers, they are the Ultralight range and the Quantum range. The former uses 700 Fill Power down and the latter uses 870 Fill Power, therefore the Quantum range has the highest warmth to weight ratio of the two so is of most interest to us. Down Quality At 870 Fill Power Polish Goose down (in a r …

The Hoka One One Sky Kaha boot is the closest to a ‘traditional’ hiking boot in the Hoka range but you won’t have experienced this level of comfort in your typical leather hiker. The deep midsole combined with the rocker makes you feel like you are almost floating across the trail. They are part cushioned trail runner and part-leather hiking boots. The upper is nubuck leather with a …

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 …