Gear Diary - Berghaus Mount Asgard Jacket

the full body shot, after a butt kicking in Arran.  Nice n dry though.

I don't do gear posts often.  I'm still amazed at some of the offers made by PR agents to test products not remotely relevant to this little blog, and that's the best of it.  Other crazy fools want me to insert their links, ads and keywords, just for money.  Nope.  But it's not all desperate thrashing about in the margins.  In the last year or so, I've met some great people working for companies who are (shock horror) actually interested in the outdoors!  So, when Berghaus offered a trial on the Mount Asgard Jacket, I cautiously accepted.  It seemed like a genuine offer - try it out, tell people what you think.  Err, ok.  I can do that.  So here goes.
 

a casual, off the cuff pose from your favourite male model

The Asgard is made of Gore Tex, a material which has obviously grown up a bit since the last time I wore one of these, in 2007-8.  The 'Pro Shell' variant is apparently at the more robust end of the spectrum, and I've no qualms about it's durability - the Asgard is made of tough stuff.  Over the past few months, it's been shoved into tiny gaps in soggy rucksacks, dragged along rocks, snow and ice, dunked in mud and skidded along grass (it's not impossible to fall over out there, you know), and has had no trouble fending off any of it.  No fraying on the sleeves from scrambling, no abrasion wear under rucksack straps.  Still good as new, after about 20 days of use. 

Waterproof?  Yes, well you'd hope so, it is £270 retail.  Absolutely no complaints here. Over the back end of winter and into the usual mixed 3 season conditions north of the border, it beads very well and the hood keeps out the weather.  This jacket pretty much laughs in the face of wind and water.

waterproof at the waterline

Breathability? This is the crux for me, usually. I'm not alone in not liking waterproofs for this reason - I'd rather be wet than too hot.  The Asgard does well, but it is a stiffly laminated '5 season' high altitude mountain jacket, so don't expect it to breathe like 3 season eVent.  I'm directly comparing it to my previous rain jacket here, which isn't really fair - I don't think it's as breathable, but then again I'm not convinced that eVent always stands up to backpacking - I think the Asgard will.  Anyway, this impacts in both directions on how I'd use it.  I wore it in the Cairngorms in alpine conditions at Easter, and would have preferred softshell.  At other times, in gusty squalls on Rum and Skye, some truly filthy weather on Arran, and packrafting for the first time recently in Inverpolly, it really came into it's own.  Horses for courses...?

where's the sweets?

Whilst we're on breathability, I should mention the vents.  These are placed above the hipbelt line on the ribcage - there are 2 vents only, 1 on each flank.  It's much more sensible to have them here, rather than in the armpit (which only function properly if you climb, or walk with your arms above your head) and it's easy to fine tune temperature control.  These vents are also used to access the pockets, which are mesh, but a little small for my liking.  One more thing - the zip is offset on the bias, so important to close it with both hands, or you end up with a small gap at the top that could theoretically let water in.  This hasn't happened yet, and the gap is concealed under a storm flap, but is worth noting.   

OK, Dave, do it again, but this time, look more epic

I've only briefly mentioned the hood.  It's pretty obvious that the whole jacket has been built around it, and it works well.  There are 2 volume adjusters, one for the head and one for the face.  The clasps for these are concealed inside the hood ring, at the nape of the neck, which stops them taking your eye out in a stiff breeze.  I couldn't get the hang of this at first, but after a faff, I tried adjusting without mitts, and it's been easy enough to fix and forget.  The hood is helmet compatible, which means there's a bit of excess here if you're not climbing, but that's a niggle really.  Conversely, the extra material means total coverage and the whole lot moves with the head, so visibility is not compromised at all, even when the weather's in.  Chin guard is the best I've used yet, and adds to the feeling of protection from the elements.

the backpacker's 'mince'

What about the rest of the fit?  I chose a large, based on an Argentium top I have, and to tell the truth the Asgard is probably a little big on me.  This means extra fabric in the body where I don't need it (it's just not possible for me to eat any more cheese than I do already).  But it's a good length that doesn't ride up with a backpack.  The cuffs have velcro fasteners which can cinch tight, and the zip is monster sized and will probably outlive the mountains, let alone me or the jacket.  Weight is in the region of 300gms or thereabouts, and it packs down to the size of a grapefruit in it's own little bag. 

Canna get a witness?

In conclusion, this is a bullet proof mountain jacket with just enough features and no more.   I'd prefer bigger internal pockets, maybe a slightly leaner cut in the body, and there maybe more breathable offerings out there (which in turn will be less durable) but otherwise, when I need the big guns for high tops or nasty weather, this is coming with me.

More from Berghaus here

A Rum One

This is what backpacking feels like.  I remember now.  A blistering hot day with a headcold on the Rum Cuillin Traverse.

A week before that, we came in on the ferry.   Connections between places are made suddenly obvious with water travel, that are not apparent until you leave dry land.

Out from the village, and south to Dibidil, past gaping fissures in the rock and diagonal water falls into the sea.  The hirsel here was built in 1848, after the clearance, and lived in by 'Johnny Come Over' and his wife, her sister and 6 children.

So we took Johnny up on his offer, and stayed the night.  Old Norse forms the basis of most place names on Rum. Dibidil simply means 'deep dale'.

 The sun left the hills blushing, and Eigg rested under moonlight.  There's a cuckoo in the glen.

We walked round to Papadil, the priest's glen, on a soaking wet path.  Feral goats gazed and grazed lazily as we picked our way across the marshy places.

After Papadil, an exhausting few hours of contouring under Ruinsival and it's upthrust plateau - off path and sidefooting and covering a km an hour or less across a rocky nowheresland, finally to Harris, with its strange raised sea shore, which we took for man made, but isn't.

The weather came in, and I went to visit the Bulloughs, the old owners of Rum, at the Mausoleum.  Skye Air Sea Rescue buzzed the tent in the gloaming at 10.30pm, I remembered not to wave at them.  Looking for a couple who had come unstuck coming down from Hallival, dehydrated, we later heard.

My girlfriend calls this 'forcing art to nature' which makes me laugh out loud, but all I did was place the antler - it's not a stage set, only a prop.  I'm not sure it's art or nature, either.  But there are ghosts here on Rum, and lots of them, and that is worth an intervention, an acknowledgment of some sort or another.  A ceremony for memory.

More hills, hills and goats, walking north now, always the sea on our left flank, across open moorland in the sunshine, past future wild camps by hidden lochans.

Slowly to the rounded summits of Orval and Fionchra, a sweeping inverted S of a ridge with a pleasing logic in relation to our destination.  The Rum Cuillin are now behind us, as we hide from cold winds behind our bags to eat.

Down to Guirdil bothy before the storm hit, and the rafters shook, and the walls sweated cold water from rain pushed through by the gale.

In between successive weather fronts I went outside to listen to the Sound of Canna.

Deer graze in the shelter of the ruins, goats eat kelp on the beach.  A few moments of stillness in between gusts and squalls.  There's a cuckoo in the glen.

More heavy memory:  ''An 'immemorial isle of graves' for, as an anonymous writer says, 'there is nothing left to mark the presence of its old population save the foundations of their dwellings. Their lives and their legends have no other memorials but the nettles growing in waste places." (Waugh 1883).  

Slow to clear in the morning and a river to cross, in spate and my partner is frightened.  Running fast but knee deep at the beach, then more rolling moor.  Then, quiet smiles as bodies chime with gentle contours - it's day 3, and we are in motion.   In the distance we see Ranger Mike, who lives at Kilmory.  Later on at camp, he approaches to talk.  Ranger Mike is the only person we meet in our 4 day circuit of the Island.

The huge beach at Kilmory, where the red deer project is based, and then round the headland a little further, to somewhere that shall remain nameless here, because it is too finely balanced to manage too many visitors.  A beach camp, a driftwood fire, watching eiders and oyster catchers glide into land at bird's eye level, nesting gulls on the dunes and the Skye Cuillin drawing clouds like a magnet from the four quarters of the sea. 

 The 'golden' hour, and a Minky whale skull. 

 Heaven, an empty gas canister, and burnt fingers in the fire.

To go further south east around the coast I had heard was not easy, so another line was chosen.  A straight line this time, up and over, steeply through waist high heather and narrow crags and yet more quiet water lochans big and small, following a burn that once fed the sheilings, a line used by calving deer to hide their newborn whilst they come down to the shore to feed.  Yes, this is what backpacking feels like, I remember it now.

Back to the village past native trees planted by the Bulloughs and the NCC.  Successfully identifying a Stone Chat, a big deal for big city dwellers.  Not onto the Kilmory track.  We take an older path, a memory line, soaking wet but better used to keep it open.  A corner store that welcomed us back, an island people, a new community Trust, some room around the collar at last.  Then a day spent thermarest surfing, nursing a cold.  There's a cuckoo in the glen here too.  A visit to the hunting lodge built by an eccentric Edwardian millionaire, a tour shared with contemporary millionaires straight off private yachts.  ''Could this item be purchased?''  ''No, I'm sorry, this is a museum.''  ''Pfft, I'm sure someone could make an exception!''  It's another universe.  Kinloch so far is lost in time, well worth your time, I want to believe it will heal in time.

But we have work to do before we leave - the central mountains beckon.  The Rum Cuillin is a long, 13 hour day out.  On the way we walk past hundreds of tiny burrows.  There are no rabbits on Rum, these are Manx Sheerwater nests.  Rum hosts 1/3 of the world population.  Hallival looking to Skye. 

Following a massive sweep of crumbling rock across 6 summits, another inverted S, the complex and shattered descents harder than the climbs, but most of the scrambling is easy enough and not exposed unless you choose the harder lines.

Up before Askival's Pinnacle, Sheerwater beaks scattered on a ridge betray an Eagle's feeding place. By the time we reach the pass of gold, before Trollabhal, we are ourselves as shattered as this high wild line.  Joined at the hip, at the side of the mountain.  As it should be.

Ainshval looks like it won't go at all, but it does.  Slowly.  We reach the last hill and look out to sea.  Yes, this is what backpacking feels like.

And Eigg, calm and welcoming, seems to acknowledge our efforts on a thirsty descent, down hard and steep from Sgurr nan Gillean.

Let's stay at the bothy in the deep glen again tonight.  We can walk to the ferry in the morning. 

Our Rum Cuillin traverse is now a route on Walk Highlands

The Priest's Glen

Papadil in old Norse, means the Priest's Dale.  A dale is another word for Glen, or Valley, but maybe shorter.  One of the more remote places on Rum, an Island without a road system in the Inner Hebrides.  Papadil is on the south-west coast, around 5 hours walk from the only village of Kinloch.  Around 40 people currently live on Rum.  None currently live at Papadil.

Variety Pack #2

The last month has been very busy indeed.  I'm running behind I'm afraid...
 

Roots of Change

A few months ago, I was lucky enough to spend a day photographing the launch of a new Phoenix Futures project.  Phoenix Futures work with those recovering from drug and alcohol addiction.  They've been using The John Muir Award since 2005, but in the autumn they teamed up with the John Muir Trust's estate in the borders to extend their program further.  The idea is to slowly replant native woodland as part of their recovery, ridding the area of invasive species and helping regenerate the native habitat.  You can read more about it here.