ISPO 2013: CAMP, CASSIN, CT TECHNOLOGY and AKU

Camp ice picks and crampons.

Well a month has passed since I attended the ISPO. Like every year it was packed and there were so many new things to see, that sometimes I ask myself where all the ideas come from. ISPO is fun. You run around all day meeting all the poeple you haven`t seen for ages and running from one meeting to another. Originally I had planed to be there for two days, but since we are powderhunters and we had one of the best dumps of the year in FISS the day before we decided to milk it while we could. So late on a Sunday exhausted and hungry, on our way back to Innsbruck, Aljosa, Gasper, Clarissa and I quickly made a plan. We would head to Munich together, crash at my buddies Andis place and go out to the Pleasuremag P1 party and ISPO on Monday. We didn`t eat all day except a quick stint at a McDs and where on our way. Suffice to say that the party was awsome and we lost Aljosa somewhere along the way. But without drifting to much into the party mayham of ISPO lets say… you have to do that some time 😛 it`s a complete blast every year XD

But then morning came and it was time for the big fair. I was running late *damed Munich traffic* to my first meeting already. 

This year ISPO attracted more then 80.000 visitors.

A few weeks earlier I was contacted by Andreas from the Italian Outdoor Group, a umbrella organisation that promotes and unites Italian outdoor producers. He invited me to a press tour. Since last year I took a more detailed look at brands like Dynafit, Scarpa, Black Diamond and the North Face, I decided to join and see what these companies form bella Italia had to offer and I was sure in for a surprise. Some of the brands are present in Slovenia, but not to the same extent as there rivals. So running late Andreas was kind enough to wait and then we started our tour.Check out a little clip from our tour by the Italian outdoor group.

CAMP and CASSIN

A Brand we all know and chances are good you already own some of there gear. There logo is as iconic as the brand itself. Now joined by Urs Odermatt for extending it`s already extensive ice climbing tools the things that struck me as most interesting from there product presentations were:

Website: http://www.camp.it/

Blade Runner Crampons

Constructed form special nanoflex steel, light and most important  they have a heel-slide that integrates the linking bar with the heel piece. Result better rigidity without dexterity loss. So it`s kind of a crossover crampon that takes the best from vertical and horizontal frame designs. Also they are light at around 1 kg.

CAMP ROCKET SAFTY SHOWEL

The new shovel from Camp is not only light but also features a interesting frame design that packs up neatly and a bit of a oversize blade made from T6 aluminium. It also has an interesting second mode. on the upper side it has small “teeth” that allow to cut really hard snow. To use that you also fasten the shaft differently to cover more area on the shovel and allow a better transition of power directly on the snow surface. It weights 660g and also has a state of the art telescope shaft.

CAMP G COMP WINDPOWER GLOVES

Most of us are used to Level 1, Zeiner and even less technical brands like Granade ect. for snow gloves  But I did find this glove, mostly intended for ski mountaineering competitions, rather intriguing. Leather for the fingers and special reinforcements that should give you more finger movement on those nasty ridges where the wind blows cold and you need all the grip and dexterity of your fingers just to hold on. Also has a full wind cover that makes it look more like a traditional snowboarding glove for the cases where the wind gets to nasty. As I said interesting item indeed.

Another thing that caught my eye was the new extended range of outdoor jackets and shells. Here the ED ATOM JACKET was the main attraction made form proprietary fabric. It seems that Camp is also following the Apparel trend of diversification that was very apparent at ISPO this year.

AKU

An outdoor trekking and footwear producer AKU has been making shoes for mountains for more then 30 years. Since I like to walk in technical boots *yes ride and hike will never replace a real shoe* I was curios to find out that a lot of outdoor filmers use these for there daily work out in the field 🙂 

Website: http://www.aku.it/us/

As any of my film friend will know, it`s not exactly cool to stand in your skiboots all day behind a camera in the snow. So I looked trough there product range and found the SL PRO II GTX. A boot that has all the super technical features and is only half the weight of my current technopro boot 😛

Another thing the company likes to cater to is the premium market. The idea is that you buy a good shoe that will last. In these department they took a lot of cues form old alpine equipment, a trend I also saw at Dynastar, but more on that in a later post.

Looks like its from the 1920 but its tech is from today 😛

CT – CLIMBING TECHNOLOGY

CT also introduced a new crampon

Website: http://www.climbingtechnology.it/en-US/home-en.html

The brand is well known in Slovenia for its technical climbing equipment but there newest innovation is the LYCAN Crampon. I already like the name… werewolf 😛 They seem to have taken inspiration form mother nature and formed the hooks like animal-claws. These allow for a lot better Ice penetration. The design also prevents nasty snow buildup beneath the crampon. It also has a very simple setup mechanism thats easy to use. They will come in an automatic and semiautomatic version and weight 1060g.

The lycan presented.