Stepped out the door this morning and crisp autumn air hit me in the face, winter just around the corner. Exciting! Our web stats show that quite a few people are checking our backcountry ski binding FAQs and mounting instructions, so I’ll continue to organize that content so it’s easier to access.
Department of BO: One reason I can smell winter instead of something else is that web been using odor control fabrics since Mountain Hardware first came out with their excellent anti-stink products. Most recent test was a T-shirt made from a Polartec odor control fabric that’s in the test phase — it’s the fabric used in the blue T you might have noticed Louie wearing in many of our blog photos. Here is the beta from Backbone Media, who gave us the shirt for testing:
“This is a new odor resistant Polartec Power Dry fabric using silver ion technology to neutralize odor causing bacteria. Silver has been a well known natural anti-microbial for centuries which is why many medical instruments today are still made with silver. The silver is integrated in the fibers before the fabric is knit – so it is a permanent part of the shirt – it’s not a treatment so it will never wash out (unlike many chemical based anti-microbial applications which break down quickly). Polartec offers silkweight, featherweight and midweight styles of this fabric. In addition to the silver fibers, all Polartec Power Dry fabrics wick and dry very quickly thanks to a bi-component or denier gradient design – this means there are fewer larger fibers on the inner surface of the fabric and many more smaller fibers on the outer surface. As a result water is pushed to the greater surface area on the outside – the fabric mechanically pulls moisture away from your body (in fact, if you wore the shirt inside out, it wouldn’t work).”
Test results: The teenage BO test gets an A- (not quite a good as other anti-odor fabrics we’ve used, but it works), and the shirt also wicks very comfortably and works for a wide temperature range. Downside was the fabric tended to snag a bit on things, but the snags didn’t run and were easily cleaned off with an electric razor sideburn trimmer. We’ll be looking for products made Power Dry, and highly recommend it!
Polartec technical.
WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou (Louis Dawson) has a 50+ years career in climbing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski down all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest mountain.
