josh

These things are made of relatively thick aluminum and they're big enough to take three cloves from my Cheeto-orange Fusion 9.2 on the wide end. Great belay/rappel locker unless you're really concerned about weight. The model-thin Petzl Attache 3D is only 34g lighter, but it costs twice as much.

These are my favorite all-around climbing shoes. I need a wide toe box, and the Mocs stretched just enough for a comfortably snug fit when I went a half-step down from my normal street shoe size. The leather upper conformed nicely to my feet.

Mocs have sensitive soles, so they work well for smearing. I've also used them for cracks, where they've done just fine, but if you're going to jam them into a lot of rough granite you can expect the rand to separate a bit up front. Also, if you really have your toes scrunched, you're not going to be happy after a few pitches of hand cracks. (That probably applies to any shoes.) For steeper face climbing with small holds, these aren't ideal, but for longer routes I'll take them anyway since they're so much more comfortable than my more aggressive shoes (Evolv Pontas). Smell better, too.

I wear the Triolet GTX, the (very similar) predecessor to this boot.

I tried on La Sportivas and some other brands before the Triolets. They all felt constrictive, particularly in the toes. These were much more comfortable.

I sized up a bit to avoid beating on my toes when kicking steps, accepting that the boots probably wouldn't be very good on rock as a result. However, when I took them out on the rock, they actually performed very well.

The Triolets also excel in snow and very low-angle ice. I haven't tried them out on steep ice, but they seem like they would be acceptable on easy terrain.

I haven't found any boots that leave me with happy feet after, say, 5,000' of continuous descent with a pack, but that's probably too much to ask for.

These shapes fit (and stick) easily in plenty of different cracks. I have yet to find any placements that fall between sizes, so the overlap is good.

Advantages of the dyneema slings vs. wired hexes:
* Color coded slings make it easier to identify individual sizes, especially when they're racked on a single biner
* No worries about wires getting kinked from running around corners
* Stem doesn't get in the way of placements
* Lighter (not sure how much this really matters; the heads are the heavy part)
* Less prone to walking (I usually extend beyond the attached sling, so using these doesn't typically cut down on the number of draws used)

Disadvantages:
* Can't use a stiff wire to position hexes in deep cracks
* Easier to lose hexes in tall, inward-flaring cracks (this happened to me once and it was a pain to fish the thing out)
* Slings degrade over time and need replacement
* Slings tangle easily if they're next to cams on your rack

Overall I prefer the Dyneema slings, and only occasionally miss the ability to use a wire stem to position a hex.

PRO: I could wear these for a week and they would still smell better than day-old synthetic boxers.

CON: The waistband chafes my nipples.

Now that I've had this thing for a few months, it's my favorite belay device for toproping, lead, and multipitch (when I'm not worried about weight.) Belaying from the anchor and toproping are ridiculously easy. Feeding out slack is smoother than on any other device I've tried.

It does take some practice to get used to the Cinch, and it's awkward if you don't use it the right way. I'd recommend watching Trango's demo video before trying to belay anybody: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9TO5ikqXwo

I ran into two problems when I first got this thing:

1) Locking the device while feeding rope for a lead climber. Avoiding this is mostly a matter of holding the Cinch by the pivot hole and not short-roping the leader in the first place. If you do accidentally lock the rope, you can reach up and pinch the device with your brake hand to unlock it. (Don't do this if it requires you to take your brake hand off the rope. Use your free hand instead.)

2) Jerky lowering. Redirecting the rope through a biner clipped to a harness leg loop helps smooth things out.

By now I've gotten to the point where these aren't really an issue anymore.

I picked this up from SAC for a good discount. After wearing it on a couple of climbs and a backpacking trip, I'm happy with the anti-stink Merino wool. It smells fine in situations where a synthetic shirt would smell like something that's been dead for a week.

The material is thin, which is great for summer hikes, but it's not very durable. I brushed up against a tree branch on the approach to a climb and the fabric ripped pretty easily. It's just a small hole, so I'll try to fix it and keep the shirt.

Sizes run small -- I'm usually between a medium and a large, but with this shirt, the large is snug.

I've had it for a year, and the Myo XP has worked well for me so far. Great for getting me back home when I'm lazy and don't get out on the trail early enough to be back by dark. It's a powerful lamp. I've found that I can use the light without the diffuser and it's still bright enough to light the area around me. In an early alpine start on a glacier, I've been able to use the boost mode to spot crevasses & other obstacles far beyond the range of my rope team's other headlamps. (Funny that another reviewer mentioned using this lamp on Longs Peak & Rainier; those were a couple of the first mountains I went up with this light.)

There are smaller lights like the Tikka XP that are still pretty bright and half the weight. Keep that in mind if you're trying to shave off a few ounces.

The stability on this lamp is good, and even better with the top strap. Doesn't flop around like I expected with the battery pack. It fits my Elios helmet just fine. Haven't gone through the first pair of batteries yet.