Equipment

What you need and where to buy it

Without fail, the second question asked by everyone who joins the club is "What equipment do I need?" (The first varies between "How are you different from the Mountaineers?"* and "What's for pudding?") This page is designed to answer that question, give a list of gear shops you can buy it from, and aid you in your journey towards Gear Nirvana and bankruptcy. Unlike Gaul, this guide is divided into four parts:

In addition, you can download these very useful and important documents:


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The Bare Necessities

Of course in theory you could wander round Snowdonia naked, but your inevitable death from hypothermia means that there is kit we reccommend you bring.

  • A waterproof jacket.
  • Warm clothing. Synthetic fleece is best, woollen jumpers a close second. Don't wear anything cotton if you can possibly help it, in case it rains: jeans are a particularly bad idea. Beware cheap fleeces! You can pick up a fleece for a tenner at the market or somewhere, but don't count on it keeping you alive in an emergency!
  • A sleeping bag. You'll be exceedingly uncomfortable without one, and for summer or hut use a cheap camping one'll be fine.
  • A rucksack. Anything with two straps is OK for summer use, 25-35 litres is a sensible minimum. If you plan to do any winter walking, climbing or mountaineering, you'll want 40-65 litres and some form of waist belt. If you think you might want to do more than walking and climbing in England, check the Advanced section
  • Walking boots. Anything that provides a modicum of ankle support is OK. Doc Martens really aren't. It's possible to wander round the mountains in trainers, but it's not advisable unless you really know what you're doing.
  • A 1 litre or greater water bottle. An empty plastic coke bottle or two is fine.
  • A torch. (Electric, not flaming.)
  • Balaclava or hat. Just the job to take the edge off the wind and hinder frostbite.
  • Gloves and/or Mitts. Having many pairs means at least one ought to be dry
  • Over-trousers.
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Club Equipment

Here is a list of some of the equipment that the club has for it's members to borrow for trips etc.

    Rock Climbing

  • Climbing Shoes
  • Climbing Harnesses
  • Climbing Helmets
  • 2x Racks, (inc: set of nuts, 12 quickdraws, Hexes and cams
  • Ropes
  • Bouldering Matts
  • Guidebooks, oh so many guidebooks for the major climbing areas
  • OS Maps

    • Ice Climbing

  • Ice Axes
  • Snow and Ice Pro, Stakes, Deadmen, Ice Screws, Warthogs, Bulldogs
  • Crampons C2/C3

    • Canoeing

  • 3 x Inflatable canoes
  • Wet suits, including life jackets, helmets, wet boots
  • Guidebooks

    • Other

  • Mountaineering tents
  • First Aid Kits
  • Roll Matts
  • Cutlery, Plates, Bowls, Mugs
  • Stoves and pots
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Advanced Gear Selection

Right, you've been on a few trips, you've got all the basic gear, and there's a contract night coming up. You want to know why half the club smell like Buffaloes, you're fed up of getting saturated in all but the lightest drizzle, and you've realised like I did that if you lack both natural talent and the inclination to improve, the next best way of winning respect in the club is to have an impressive collection of gear and to talk about it as if you know what you're saying. Well, actually there're so many options that you're pretty much on your own. Ask around the more experienced members of the club for advice - most of 'em know what they're talking about, and it makes them feel important and wanted. Bear in mind that anything they've just spent £300 on is bound to be the dog's proverbials. Ask the bloke in the shop, but bear in mind they're there to sell you things! Read the descriptions in the various catalogues, balance things against your overdraft limit and spend your way into bankruptcy!

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Sleeping Bags

Nine out of ten owners say their club members prefer Ajungilaks. The ridiculously popular Ajungilak Kompakt (Cotswold: £110) is a cheap synthetic three-season bag in which (thousands of) club members have successfully bivvied at altitude without becoming excessively frostbitten. It even comes in left and right zip versions for bundles of his & hers fun. Even I ended up buying one (albeit the more expensive four-season version) after months of vowing that I wouldn't.

The Ajungilak Kompakt 2000 is £130 and has a waterproof outer that should negate the requirement for a bivvy bag unless it's actuallly pissing it down, but I don't think anyone in the club has one.

Don't buy a down bag for use in this country - if they get wet, they're useless.

If you've got a sleeping bag, you probably want something to sleep on. The club owns several thousand tatty foam man-sized rectangles (commonly known as "Karrimats"), and you can too for about a fiver upwards. Infinitely more comfortable and portable is the Therma-Rest - a cross between a karrimat and a self-inflating air bed. Therma-Rests come in all shapes, sizes and prices: of particular note is the "Ultralite 3/4", which weighs about a pound and packs down to about the size of a waterbottle. Used all over the world, from hut floors to Himalayan glaciers, they even come with a lifetime warranty!

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Base Layer

What's a base layer? Most people call it underwear, and a good few pages in any decent outdoor catalogue are devoted to a random collection of underpants, T-shirts, bras, socks, etc. Generally speaking, anything cotton is bad news. It soaks up sweat as you climb, gets completely sodden, and then freezes you as soon as you hit some wind. Wear something like Helly Hansen Lifa underwear or merino IceBreakers, and you'll be nice and dry whatever happens.

The importance of decent socks cannot be overestimated. I got huge blisters for years before swapping my ski-socks for technical walking socks. (Then I tried wearing them on my feet, and that solved it.) Just don't forget to wash them after every trip - performance decreases as pungency increases (coincidentally).

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Waterproof Clothing

There's not much to choose between the different manufacturers; what matters most is the material used. The obvious choice, Gore-Tex, is very waterproof and breathable and is probably the most famous waterproof fabric in the world. It's consequently astronomically expensive. There are a large number of types of Gore-Tex - the newest, best and priciest is "Gore-Tex XCR".

Since there are no standards for measuring waterproofness and breathability, it's hard to recommend equivalents to Gore-Tex. Lowe Alpine's proprietary Triple-Point Ceramic fabric is well-regarded though, and has the additional advantage of having the word "ceramic" in the name. Mountain Hardwear use their proprietary "Conduit" fabrics for their lower-end garments; Apart from these, your best indication of quality is price (and that's not a good thing).

Gore-Tex trousers are probably more trouble than they're worth; they and Gore-Tex gaiters are just asking to have crampons stuck through them. If you plan to wear crampons, get gaiters or trousers with reinforced inner legs. I have Mountain Hardwear Altitude gaiters (Snow & Rock: about £35), and cannot recommend them more highly.

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Insulation

The ubiquitous fleece deserves a mention here. Again, the manufacturer doesn't really matter. Generally speaking it's a bad idea to wear "fashion" fleeces or £10 market jobs when out climbing, etc. as the manufacturers tend not to worry about how well they insulate when soaking wet in a gale, for example. As a random guideline, you can't go wrong buying anything with a Polartec label hanging off it. Ultrafleece and Aleutian are also reputable. Another worthy mention is the Buffalo, essentially a windproof fleece designed to be worn next to the skin and never taken off. Saves worrying about a base layer, but the smell starts to make you unpopular after a couple of days.

Some members of the club own down jackets. These certainly keep you warm, but as soon as a single drop of water comes within five metres of them they quadruple in weight and stop insulating. There's no point buying a down jacket to wear in the UK, and they don't see much use even in the Alps. Best wait until you're off to the Himalayas, and then get one at a RAB expedition discount. Snugpak do a synthetic version that might be worth it for less predictable climes.

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Gloves, Hats, Balaclavas

All worth having, all entirely up to individual choice. No-one's yet designed the killer glove (apart from MI6 armourer "Q", but that's not important right now). The wool ones get wet, the sticky bits on the palm come off the ones with sticky bits on the palm, and you daren't wear the Gore-Tex ones except in the bath for fear of wearing or slicing through them. Alan (and Steve) recommend Dachsteins - traditional close-knit wool mittens that keep your fingers warm even when wet. Andy swears by his idiosyncratic mittens on which the finger end folds back to reveal fingerless gloves. He's won few converts so far though (Cati being the notable exception), mainly because they're hard to find outside Wales.

A hat is a hat is a hat. Get a fleece one (preferably with tassels with bells on) or a Balaclava. Or both. Top hats, deerstalkers, bowlers etc are generally frowned upon.

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Climbing Gear

The club can provide harnesses, ropes, belay devices, helmets and a half-decent lead kit (well, half a decent lead kit, anyway); I don't want to make too many recommendations - half the fun of climbing is working out your own preferences.

It's probably worth buying your own climbing shoes ("stickies") fairly early on, but for the beginner, there's not much to choose between models. Choose a tight pair (half a size smaller than your shoe size if you can bear the pain); the extra grip's worth it.

If you want your own harness, the Black Diamond Bod is cheap, extremely comfortable, has lots of gear loops, can be put on quickly while wearing boots and crampons, and you can (if male) relieve yourself while wearing it without having to undo any safety-compromising straps. The club tends to buy DMM Alpine harnesses - also cheap, but less comfortable, and with very few gear loops.

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Winter & Mountaineering Gear

If you're thinking about winter walking, ice-climbing or mountaineering, you probably don't need advice about gear! The club can provide walking crampons and ice-axes, although we don't recommend putting crampons onto floppy walking boots. Having said that, many members have done so for years with no problems whatsoever (ask any fogie about "Bendy-boots Andy"); on the other hand by being extremely stupid (and incidentally losing his crampons) one member almost killed himself in the Alps a few years back. It's up to you.

Many outdoor retailers grade the boots and crampons they sell by number - see here for an explanation.

If you decide to get fully stiffened boots, there's no obvious best choice. Probably the most advanced technically are the Salomon Super Mountain 9 Guides, available pretty much everywhere for £180, others swear by Scarpas, Meindls and Asolos. They're all good; they're all £150 or more.

A popular boot that's stiff enough for step-in crampons but comfortable enough for walking in is the La Sportiva Makalu GTX, available in versions for both sexes for £145; the Salomon Super Mountain 8 at £130 is a similar boot. Club crampons will work with both these boots (and a variety of less stiff ones, in reality).

Crampons and ice-axes are pretty much up to the purchaser to choose! Most people in the club with their own crampons seem to have Grivel 2Fs with one or another of the various binding options. I use the equivalent crampons from Black Diamond: the Sabretooths. They're harder to adjust, but slightly better at not balling up in soft snow and theoretically marginally more stable on nevé. Having said that, anti-balling plates are a strong recommendation whatever your crampons.

As far as ice-axes go, the club has recently been buying the Mountain Technology Vertige. This comes with a variety of picks and adzes and in several lengths. For walking and mountaineering, you need a 55-65cm straight-shafted axe with an "Alpine" pick and a large adze. For ice climbing, your axes can be curved or straight, should be 45-55cm and should have one adze and one hammer. "Recurved" picks are also available, suitable for ice-climbing only. The DMM Fly is also an exceptional technical axe. If you can put up with a long straight shaft on your technical axes and a short shaft on your walking axe, you can use the same axes for both purposes.

If you plan to go mountaineering, you'll need some climbing gear: at least two eight foot (perimeter) slings, three screw-gate karabiners and a pair of Prussik loops. If you don't know what any of these are, ask someone.

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Beer

Lager-drinkers are generally frowned on in the club. You can't go wrong with a decent Real Ale (as long as you drink it at the right temperature). Drinking wine may be seen as poncey (and prepare to be ostracised if you drink wine in pubs; women may be excused this fate). Mulled wine is acceptable in winter. It's hard to go wrong with spirits (preferably home-distilled); drinkers of blended whisky will be taught the error of their ways, however.

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Gear Shops

Right, you know what you want, but where are you going to buy it? Here's a list of the various shops and their pros and cons and a map showing a load more which aren't in the list. All these shops have websites so check the stores are still open before travelling to find them as this map won't be updated very often.


View Gear Shops in a larger map
  • Cotswold Outdoor:Cotswold has a reasonable but not outstanding selection of outdoor gear. They do a 10% discount to students and a 15% discount to members of our club! For the latter you need the Number - ask a committee member for it. The club sometimes arranges contract evenings here when the discount goes up to as much as 20%. On the down side, Cotswold stretch themselves too far, trying to capture the walking, climbing, trekking and canoeing markets (and sometimes even the skiing and snowboarding markets), and consequently their range is poor - they tend to have one or two of everything, but rarely exactly what you want. Rumour has it that a clearance section has opened in this store recently, potentially offering even greater savings...
  • Snow & Rock: Halfway down Ken High Street, Snow & Rock are seriously into skiing and boarding. Their walking / climbing section is usually tucked away downstairs at the back of the shop during the ski season, but they manage to stock a much more sensible (or at least different) range of gear to Cotswold, and have lots more available by mail order. They're too trendy to have cheap prices though, and they don't do student discounts. They do do a Europe-wide Price Match guarantee. If you get fed up of scraping tiny discounts out of unwilling alternative retailers, come here and spend away your overdraft on some seriously decent kit. People have mixed opinions about Snow & Rock - some think it has a great range and helpful staff, others think quite the opposite is true. Apparently their Covent Garden branch is good.
  • Ellis Brigham Mountain Sports: Just next to Snow & Rock. Also excessively ski/board oriented, they too have a smallish but reasonable selection of walking and climbing gear. Discounts are improbable.
  • Blacks: Right next to S&R and EB; we're talking bimbling here. If you're a rambler at heart, this is the shop for you. You're also probably thinking about joining the fellwanderers. On the plus side, they also do a 10% student discount (if you spend more than £30), and occasionally they'll do serious discounts on decent stuff - I picked up a Sprayway Windbloc fleece in Black's at more than 30% off.
  • BCH Camping: A Bath-based supplier of all kinds of camping and outdoor gear, their day-to-day stock tends towards the gentle end of outdoor activities, but they can order pretty much anything you ask them to specially, and they deliver for free on all orders over £100. Most importantly, Dan has some 20% discount cards kicking around! They have a reputation for good customer service.
  • Outdoors: All over the country; stay away unless you want a patrol tent, Brownie uniform or other Scouting-related stuff. Only visited by DofE participants, Brownies and Damo.
  • Online: Most of the shops above sell stuff on their websites, but you don't get a student discount that way, do you? The only exclusively online gear shop worth mentioning is Rock and Run. They stock pretty much everything and often have amazing deals. Definitely worth checking out.
  • Snell Sport: Chamonix. The south of France is a long way to go to buy gear, but the prices are cheap and the range is good. (Everything Fred owns, he bought in Snell Sport. Including Nathalie.) About half the staff speak English, and since the club seems to end up in Cham every summer tour anyway, it's a good place to know about. Allegedly, they have a web site and do mail order.