New stuff from Berghaus and Brasher revealed in frozen road trip horror.
Just back from an interesting couple of days up in the bonny North East of England where we spent a day with the guys at Berghaus checking out some very neat new products coming your way next winter plus a day out walking in Northumberland with some of the guys from Brasher.
There'll be a lot more about both days along in a bit, but what we can tell you now is that Berghaus has taken the concept of water-resistant, hydrophobic down first seen in this year's Asgard Hybrid Jacket and done some really interesting stuff with it - apparently Mick Fowler took the proto of the new jacket to the Himalayas and was blown away by how it performed.
Think outstanding warmth to weight ratio, allied to superior technical mobility - yes, it was cold enough that Mick was climbing in down - and finally, the benefits of that hydrophobic down, but in a high loft version. It's arguably the most 'designed' down jacket we've ever seen and pretty impressive stuff from the Mtn.Haus guys.
There's more new Berghaus stuff as well including a lighter down jacket, tweaked Asgard shell and a mountain pack developed with professional mountain guides in the Alps that features some really interesting touches. So more about all of those to follow.
Day one finished with an illuminating tour - crawl? - of the highlights of Ouseburn, which is highly recommended.
Then on Day Two, we popped up to Northumberland for some scoop first user-impressions of the new Brasher Fellmaster boot. The weather was, frankly, awful. Temperatures around freezing with super-cooled rain landing on the ground and then freezing on contact. Just getting across the car park was a tenuous mix of ice-skating and penguin-style break dancing.
What's so important about the new Fellmaster? Well, it's a Brasher classic and while it was overdue for a revamp, the Brasher guys didn't want to lose the essence of the boot along the way. As a result, the overhaul has taken two years and while it's recognisably still a Brasher boot, it's also been seriously improved with carefully chosen components and styling. And at a killer price too.
How well does it work? We'll tell you in a bit. And we'll also have some exciting sock news, in so far as sock news is ever 'exciting', because let's be honest, socks are a bit like plumbing. You only really notice them when things start to go wrong...
And finally, there's one more thing. But we're not allowed to tell you about that. We signed a legal thing to that effect as well. Sorry...
