A day out …
Starting from the railway station in Sheffield which has an otter in a case chewing its own foot
We caught the train through the Peak District via Manchester to Liverpool with Ed from Buffalo Systems.
We were off to OTS.
A walk through the city from the Lime Street Station
led us to the Exhibition Centre.
Hadn’t been to one of these for ages.
First and foremost the best bit of the day was going all fanboy when i saw Chris Townsend making a short video at the Mont stand. I shook his hand and thanked him for being an inspiration and for everything he does. When i was a teenager i was getting his books out the library. Now in my 50’s i was reading his blog the other day for advice on 1 person tents. ‘Thru hiking’ before the phrase was even invented and a formidable depth of hard earned knowledge from tens of thousands of miles on trails around the world. Thanks Chris.
I was going to OTS with two aims … firstly to try and elicit some discounts for mountain rescue volunteers, and secondly to possibly write a magazine article on inovative new gear for the mountain rescue journal.
Most of what i saw and fettled isn’t available to purchase until Spring Summer 2026.
In no particular order …
A shirt with sheep and campervans and mountains and trees on it from La Sportiva 🥰
Mont are apparently a 40 yr old Australian outdoor brand looking to establish themselves here in the UK. Some excellent products and hopefully some calibre indy stores over here will stock them.
I liked their 1 person 3 season tent (below)
Infinity slings from BD (above). Shoe lace diameter slings in 120, 180 and 240 lengths. Rated to 22kn. Genius.
The Brenta Tech. A synthetic uppered super durable high ankle approach shoe with a waterproof liner and a gnarly sole from Boreal. Gimme.
I didn’t get a photo of it but the revised Exped Lightning sack looked great. It won an award.
The revised Bug sack from Petzl has a laptop sleeve in it in case you need to fire off emails from the third pitch belay 🤷♂️
A lot of sack makers heading down the sailcloth route. Exped, La Sportiva and Deuter to name a few. This is the Deuter Guide Ultra 26
And this is a La Sportiva one called Granite 32
A little shout out to Ronnie at Vertura a Nottingham based designer and maker of outdoor clothing for women. Some excellent stuff from a tiny company.
Lots of affordable and reliable kit from Keela. Simple synthetic jackets in Primaloft 60 or 100 weight
and a lightly insulated flexible soft shell which a few other mountain rescue teams members all agreed was a cracking bit of kit for mixed conditions from Spring to Autumn
yes it is available in red …
Had a chat to Firepot … bloody love everything they do. They are bringing out some cereal bars … there hoisin flavoured one (on the left) was amazing … (the one on the right is probably equally amazing but has coconut in it which makes me need an 🚑 ). Sobering comversation about the energy bill of a company that uses a massive dehydrater every day 😳😳
Not much else that grabbed my attention tbh. Nothing truly revolutionary. Lots of good people doing what they’ve been doing well for years or decades and lots of other people wanting a slice of what other people are doing.
I think a sign of getting old is nattering with several brands and realising that you’ve been using their products longer than the sales rep has been alive 😳
Many thanks to the brands that offered to help mountain rescue volunteers via discounts. Appreciate the support.
Oh and i met the bloke that ran the branch of Trekitt that i worked in in (about) 1994 in Cardiff 🤯.
Direct train in both directions and a lovely pint of Bass at The Crown outside Lime St on the way home.