New Stuff Scoopio

We also got a sneak preview of the autumn/winter 06 MHW kit. It's the stuff that'll be out late this year, but there were a coupe of interesting bits and bobs we thought you might like to know about...

The GTX 2.5 Jacket takes the membrane and accompanying grey scrim from Gore-Tex Paclite and laminates it onto a tougher more durable face fabric, which should create a material that combines decent moisture handling with greater toughness.

It also has a lining of PimpChimp lightweight fleece at shoulders and middle back which is attached only at the edges to minimise the effect of glue on breathability. Looks interesting and will retail for £280.

There's a new G50 softshell, which is effectively the technical-looking Synchro, but minus the taping, so it's highly water resistant, but not waterproof, but more affordable at £130.

Of the kit which is appearing in the shops now, the most interesting stuff looks like being the new Offwidth Jacket - right. It's very similar to the Velocity Jacket, which we like a lot, but uses an own-brand fabric instead of Schoeller. That makes it a lot cheaper at £100, but it should still give good wind and water resistance with excellent breathability for fast movers.

Check out the new Cordillera Pant too. It has a seamless, chamois-lined conical waist, like the old Pack Pant, but uses a lightweight fabric with four-way stretch and looks a bit more modern with it - should make a good, all-round mountain walking pant we reckon.

www.mountainhardwear.com

The HH team have been busy too. They've very excited about a new waterproof softshell with welded seams, but more interesting, we reckon, is a new version of their Lifa baselayer due out next winter.

It's an interesting one, using a new version of their polypropylene fabric, but with hollow fibres to trap more air, apparently it's based on polar bear fur. Then the Thermic Tube Technology (T3) is combined with merino wool for additional insulation. The T3 is on the inside and the merino outside with the ratio being 38/62 between the two, that's more merino than polypropylene.

Feels nice and soft plus we have some to try so we'll report back later in the year.

Wild Roses is a women's-specific brand that you'll hopefully be seeing a bit more of in the shops this year. The company makes kit purely for women right across a range of outdoors sports from full-on mountaineering through to more leisure-orientated stuff. The idea is kit that works well and also looks good.

Their stand was also the first place we've seen any of the new Gore-Tex Comfort Mapping kit in the flesh in the form of the Body Mapping Jacket and Pant. Body Mapping aims to combine different Gore-Tex fabrics to suit the demans of different areas of the body.

In the case of the Wild Roses jacket, that means a mix of Gore-Tex 3-layer XCR with XCR stretch and 3L Softshell. The latter seems to use small squares of a microfleece-like material laminated onto the lining of the garment, presumably to provide insulation in those areas. Anyway, here's what it looks like... More details of the comfort-mapping stuff next month.

This is the Zenith boot which kind of caught our eye. It's available in Gore-Tex and plain vanilla, non-Gore-Tex versions and looks like a really nice allround walking boot at a very light claimed 1350 grammes or so per pair. Nice low profile too thanks to the Aku internal mid-sole system which effectively reduces the thickness of the sole unit by putting the hard lasting board under the EVA cushioning instead of above it. Out now.

Congratulations to Aku as well for winning a Soltex award for their full-on mountaineering boot The Spider due out next winter. We've been using a pair and they combine incredibly light weight with great comfort and performance. More about them soon.

www.aku.it