Meet the Original Mountain Marathon company, the new name for KIMM and the latest industry incarnation of the legendary Mike Parsons, the man behind a host of iconic packs.
One 'new' old face we ran into at the recent Outdoor Preview trade
show in Harrogate was Mike Parsons, once of Karrimor then KIMM
and now OMM short for the Original Mountain Marathon
Company.
It's a long story, slightly tied up with Karrimor's recent
tribulations, but basically OMM is the new name for KIMM and the
Original Mountain Marathon Company continues to produce lightweight
products in the spirit of mountain marathons, the first of which was
introduced by Parsons himself.
In the past Mike's been responsible for iconic products like the
Karrimor Jaguar, Alpiniste, Hot Ice, the KSB boot and the Karrimat as
well as the KImmlite pack series used by countless fast movers, so it
was interesting to see what's on the OMM menu for next year.
Leanweight...
The current OMM range features a selection of lightweight packs,
but they've been tweaked even further for next year with handy new
compression systems and stowage pockets and strippable features that
combine lots of carrying capacity with breathtakingly light
weights.
High spec fabrics like Dyneema and simple but effective back
systems should make for durable packs for climbing and backpacking.
The most convincing demonstration though was simply donning a
lightweight pack loaded down with ropes, rack, ice tool mats and more
and realising that it was simply a very comfortable, stable carry
despite the lightweight.
We were also knocked over by the new Mountain Mover 65+15 which if
our memory is vaguely accurate, can be stripped down from an already
light 1400 grammes or so to a ridiculously featherweight 700 grammes
for an 80-litre pack - that's plain bonkers.
Back systems are based on a Karrimor-style Fformatt - yes, Mike
invented that as well - but there's a new 'Duomat' which comprises
two 80cm long sections of dense foam folding mat which can be hook
and looped together for bivvy use.
Finally there's a new hoodless version of the Kamleika Smock
called the Vail - cut closer, it's aimed at adventure racers looking
to shave grammes without losing performance.
We could go on, but OMM has promised to supply us with some test
kit, so more in the future.
In the mean time, it's good to see a small British company still
coming up with fresh ideas. You can see the current range at
www.theomm.com
where there's also information on the 2006 Original Mountain
Marathon, now sponsored by Vango.
