I would add compass as a nice feature to have in binoculars for hiking. There's not a lot of use in it in our age of GPS and GLONASS, but I loved it in old days then we still had paper maps.

It is a good idea to look for creams for carpenters, miners and anybody else who have to do a lot of hard work with their hands in the outdoors. Those products have been on the market for long time, proven to work and much cheaper than climbers specific ones.

djechlin, It's not that straight forward. You would end up with a hell lot of different checklists. Not just 5, but few hundreds for sure. Best thing to do is to work it out with your partner. Because it depends on both gear and people. Some use figure of 8, others like grigri. Some people use belay loops, others cut those off. At the bottom end rock climbing as we know it is a new sport and it develops rapidly.

I think it's a bad practice to put yourself in to a danger by getting to the leader. It may sound selfish, but personal safety of the last man standing is the main priority. If you'll get injured you'll have two casualties and help will arrive much later. Or won't arrive at all.

Leaving a lot of gear should be the last thing worrying you when saving partners ass.

Average time one can survive without water is 100 hours. A healthy man in nice cool canyon away from sun doing nothing is supposed to live for those 127 hours. And those 350ml were a small helper. It hardly proofs anything. A valid scenario would be 10L and a month to survive.

Roflo, it is not true anymore. Gyms were designed for training the skills, but now it all changed. At least from that I hear from gym workers and people going to gyms, here in South England. Most gym clients never climb in the wild. For many different reasons really.. And gyms are businesses after all, they open doors to make cash. As result we see gyms doing whatever it takes to get even more people who never climb in the wild..

I've tried warm stones few times, but found it inefficient. My best guess is that stones block the airflow and it stops humid air from escaping. Keeping boots next to fire seems to work far much better.

Depends on crampons. C1 is fine in 2L Coke bottle.

In Europe we still have bears and wolfs in some areas. Romania, Scandinavia and Russia mainly. Those can be of a problem, but a handgun is just a dead weight. Hunting rifle (against bears) or a shotgun (against wolfs) must be used. But yes, in tourist popular places all predators were killed by humans.

Gas torches are even better. There are micro ones made mostly from plastic. They cost just few $, refillable and amazing to start fires!

I think that leash is a must for a person who is buying his first axe. And personally I don't see any benefits of not using leash with a walking axe at all.

Are they meant for boots? All the appliances of those I can find are on gloves, trousers, jacket, but not boots.

Where are two layers attached one to another. The outer seems like nylon shell that the gore-tex is. The inner is soft and my guess was it's some kind of foam. I am away from home for the weekend and will be able to take a photo of the split only on Monday.

@nivag, you are right. I just pointed 'up to' and was shocked at that price charged in Swiz in 2013. But even paying €30 for a 10 day trip would make €300 price for accommodation. Many Europeans who camp 10 days in Alps have whole adventure budgets with flights, trains and funicular tickets under €300. That's why I'm saying huts are expensive.