Inside The Outdoor Industry's Head :-)

We spent yesterday at this year's Innovation for Extremes event at Lancaster University where the cream of the outdoors industry and other interested parties were sifting through both the history and the future of innovation in outdoor equipment design.

Some of the talks were fascinating, some impenetrable, and a couple a mix of the two. Organisers Mike Parsons of KIMM and now OMM fame and Mary Rose first cooperated over a book on outdoors innovation with an emphasis on the Mallory and Irvine controversy and the conference was born out of that.

There was so much packed into the day that we can't possibly tell you all of it, but if you want a glimpse into the future and the past of outdoor kit, here are a few pointers...

We've already told you about Graham Hoyland's plans to recreate Mallory and Irvine's 1924 attempt for television, but it was fascinating hearing him talk at first hand about wearing the clothes at 22,000 feet on the mountain this spring.

After 20 years and eight expeditions to Everest, including a summit, he knows a fair bit about what works, so his impressions of the exact replicas of Mallory's clothing made, are definitely informed.

In short he liked the smell and feel of the kit and was blown away by its lightness and the ease of mobility he found when stepping up and cutting steps with a traditional wooden axe, again, something he found light and balanced.

The combination of tailored fit, sliding layers - silk and wool - and cunning cut in the case of the jacket or loose fit with the plus fours made them amazingly useable and unrestrictive he said, though he did get some odd looks...

He also found the lightweight isulated leather boots with their nailed soles ideal for the frozen shaly terrain of the mountain slopes, though lacking in insulation.

'In these clothes,' he observes, 'You wouldn't survive an overnight bivvy.'

Hoyland still believes passionately that the pair did climb the mountain and his hunt for the camera and proof goes on. He also observed that climbers in those days were harder and fitter than today, hardened by the rigours of WW1 and a less pampered lifestyle generally and that this, in combination with their lightweight kit, made them formidable climbers.

Note that Mallory's kit was not the tweed jacket and breeches previously believed, but a much more sophisticated layering system using natural fabrics.

Engineering materials at a molecular level is the big buzz right now and, to be honest, much of it flew over the heads of the bulk of the audience including our's.

There were glimmers of relevance however, with the promise of self-cleaning fabrics with built-in, lasting, water repellancy, electrical circuitry and even tiny cell-level electric motors which could power, say, a GPS, also built into the garment.

Whether you'd actually want, say, GPS clothing is another matter, but somewhere in the mass of complexity and research physics is the promise of smart kit that could, for example, adjust the temperature of your clothing according to how hard you're working and what conditions are like.

A heart-rate sensing crop-top / bra is already in existence and there's a massive amount of research going on in the area, so watch this space for more developments. Our money's on a GPS hat that shouts: 'Oi! Bozo! You're lost again - don't go any further!'

The Parsons / Rose teams sprang into action with a look at the history of lightweight and, despite the hype, it's a long way from being new.

The harsh conditions of polar exploration, for example, and Nansen in particular were a massive stimulus to the development of light weight technology with the use of skis, better stoves and lightweight sillk tents allowing faster, more efficient movement across the ice.

The legendary Mike Parsons, lightweight pioneer, founder
of the KIMM, inventor of the KSB and the Karrimat and
wearer of very cool Paul Smith shirts :-)

Mountaineering too had its lightweight pioneers - Mummery's tent for example weighed an astonishing 660 grammes and used a long ice axe as a pole in a similar fashion to adventure race tents incorporating trekking poles.

In 1905, mountaineers Hope and Kirkpatrick carried just 9lb for their walk-in to the hut and stripped down to 6lb for summit attempts partly through using an ultra-lightweight pack made from Burberry cloth.

And then there was Mallory. His clothing was some 50 per-cent lighter than the kit used by, say, Alan Hinkes in similar conditions while his boots are the lightest ever to have been used on Everest.

A Mallory boot, which was used without crampons thanks to its nailed sole, weighed just 800 grammes. By comparison, in the Bonington era, a plastic boot weighing 1600 grammes would be teamed with a 600-gramme insulated gaiter plus another 600 grammes for the crampons.

The story goes on - Parsons himself made Chris Brasher a KIMM race sac that weighed just 3 ounces compared to the original 12 ounces back in 1974 and scout pioneers were using ultra-lightweight tents years before Ryan Jordan - founder of backpackinglight - attempted his trans-Alaskan trek with a 'base pack weight' of just 4.5 kilos.

User Skill

Is the uneasy relationship between lightness and functionality. Mike Parsons recalled having to check ultra-lightweight mountaineer Alex McIntyre's kit to prevent him pushing too far.

The bottom line, is that to use really lightweight stuff safely, requires an element of user judgement and skill without which it can be uncomfortable or even dangerous.

Don't Be A Mallory...

Mike was also eager to stress that climbers of Mallory's era were simply tougher and more resistant to hardship than us modern softies, so don't go thinking you can climb Everest in a few silk layers and some Brasher boots...

If you've been in the market for a sleeping bag recently, you'll have noticed that all bags now carry a slightly confusing set of temperature ratings. Well, it's all down to a European standard that, according to Ajungilak's Mick Farnworth, is severely flawed and varies in results between testing labs.

His message was that the standards will be coming soon to other areas like boots, tents and clothing and unless the industry gets involved when they're being discussed, we can expect more confusion.

To underline it, take a look at this slide from his presentation - same bag, different standards, massively different rating. Confused, you will be...

And here's the dummy who does the testing, Charlie, a thermal mannikin with a very arbitrary nature, though to be fair, since the test was introduced, Mick concedes that Ajungilak have had no customer complaints that bags were too cool.

To wrap it all up, Dave Brook, a kit testing guru from Leeds University, gave an affable talk on his other life as a committed pot-holder. Scary stuff and some bonkers kit including ex-RAF 'Goon Suits', woolly pullies worn upside down on the legs and some nasty observations on frequent wet-suit wear, which you don't really want to know about.

The bottom line seems to be that serious advances in caving clothing stopped with pile leaving people to get on with serious business of going down caves... Perhaps there's a lesson for us all there :-)

That's a super-quick whisk through yesterday's fascinating event. You can find more information about the conference at www.innovation-for-extremes.org and it's happening again at the same time next year.

Don't think it's just for outdoors industry people though, Mike was at pains to point out that anyone with an interest in outdoor kit and innovation is welcome to come along and participate, so watch this space.