A couple of weeks ago, Graham and myself went down to Wales to spend a couple of days with the team from Mammut, testing out and learning about some of their hardware and ropes and meeting some of their design team and athletes. Here’s a quick overview of what we did – stay tuned for more in-depth product reviews to come in the next few weeks.
The session began with an overview of Mammut hardwear and an interesting talk from Fritz, Mammut’s Climbing Equipment Product Manager, on their rope range. We all know the basics of single/double ropes etc, but certainly learnt some interesting facts from this. Did you know that within European regulations rope diameters can be given +/- 0.2mm of their measured diameter? We didn’t. We also watched this video of how Mammut ropes are made from start to finish, showing just how many processes go into making this essential piece of equipment – well worth a watch.
Unfortunately the typical Welsh drizzle was showing itself, but we still managed to get outside and test out some harnesses, helmets, quickdraws, ropes and belay devices on real rock before the rain hit.
Fortunately, we were staying at Plas-y-Brenin, allowing us to use their facilities once the rain started coming down. The RescYou is a device we were particularly keen to try out. We’ve been selling this for a few months now and have had a quick play in the office, but not with an actual person on the end of it! We tried it out in both self-rescue and crevasse-rescue modes and were pretty impressed. It’s a good way to simplify what can otherwise be a fairly complex system.
The Mammut Smart and Smart Alpine are innovative belay devices that are auto-locking but with no moving parts, using just the HMS carabiner to lock the rope. The Smart is for use only on single ropes, whilst the Smart Alpine works on double ropes and can be used in ‘guide’ mode for belaying one or two seconds. Here’s Fritz from Mammut HQ demonstrating its use in this way.
All-in-all, a great couple of days, thanks to the team at Mammut for putting it on. Product reviews to come!