Valandre – Bifrost
High tech light weight short mountaineering down jacket. Replacing the Kiruna jacket in the Valandré product line. Compartment system: “Non down shift system” on body and arm section. Cut: Totally articulated offering free arm movements. Anatomical bended sleeves. Hood: Down filled hood, incorporated into the hood pocket in the collar.
Hood compartimation: 3 lower compartments, fixing the down against the
neck, and 3 top/hood compartments. Collar compartments: One compartment on the front of the collar on the left and right side. (See inside black liner fabric)
Body section compartments: 37 non shifts. (Total 45 compartments) Pockets: Two “tunnel” hand warmers, sewn on to the inside liner fabric. Two inside breast pockets. Fill weight: 250g gray fatty goose in the size Medium. Total weight: 709g in the size Medium. Zip system: YKK custom zip system in Open left for the US market and Open right for the EU market.
The EuropeeanOutDoor show runs from the 12 to 15 July, and Valandre will exhibit in Hall 7 booth A7-307.
From August 2th to 5, the second round is off in Salt Lake City with the Outdoor Retailer show. We will exhibit at and with Liberty Mountain at booth # 10007.
So what will be new? As usual, not a lot…….but what we have tends always to hit the center, and this time it will as well!
The winter 2012 saw here in Europe, polar cold decent from Siberia covering the western European continent completely. Heavy snow blocked road transportations all over Europe, and temperatures hit serious negative values.
In the north east of Romania, there is a gorge called Bicaz and in this gorge, there is a face called “Hells neck”. In the days of February 15 to 22, Emil Camerzan and Leslie Fucsko, opened a new route named “ZEITGEIST” – A German word for “TIMESPIRIT”. Briefly it’s 420m of overhanging limestone, with 11 pitches of artificial climbing and 2 pitches of A4, some free climbing and two pitches of alpine mix at the end of the route.
The perfect conditions to test the articulated Immelman concept down jacket, as it is designed to perform in these, technical climbing conditions. And the holy ghost, sprayed freezing conditions of daytime -10°/15°C (15°/5°F) and night time -20°/26°C (-5°/15°F), on these 420m (1377 ft) overhanging limestone, allowing a serious field test.
Leslie and Emil exited the 420m (1377 ft) overhanging route after 7 days. And as they did not report having a cold at the exit, we presume that the Immelman did well in the daytime once needed, and that the Lafayette and Mirage, allowed them to rest well at night.
Hats off to Emil and Leslie, for this remarkable artificial winter climb.
Nolan Fritts from Slingfile in Berkeley CA started to talk high altitude expedition at our booth at Liberty Mountain. So we opened the chat, and explained Valandre’s concept of “Gear” designed for “High altitude non ox speed climbing”. Trying several bags one by one, I cooked up Nolan for the BIG test: The combination of our high altitude Combi suit + the La Fayette. Thanks Nolan…..we had fun…..and shared the passion
blog : http://www.myspace.com/frittsdude
Well, here’s a review telling you how I took my size long Valandre Shocking Blue, a 3lb bag EN comfort rated at 16F, to a verified -15F, and slept as soundly as I ever have. At first, you’ll pass it off as experimenter bias, telling yourself that anyone who even considers—let alone owns—an $800 sleeping bag is going to think highly of it to begin with. You’ll say my thermometer had to be off. You’ll tell yourself that, with the clothing I wore, and the fact that I slept on two pads, on snow, inside a double wall tent, you could have done the same in your Antelope or Snowbunting. I mean, they have around the same 30 ounces of high-quality down, right? Right? Well, I’m not so sure you could.
