The Wisp 1 in silnylon by Big sky products, weighing in at 500 grams. A great little tent that cost around $220. Easy to setup and big enough for most people.
Tentipi.. a 3.5 kilo beast of a tent and the lightest one in their collection. Maybe large for one person, certainly not lightweight, but great for family Glamping.
I found this little umbrella tucked away in the Evernew booth. Weighs just 90grams and big enough to cover my head and pack. Will be available in europe and the USA next year.
A sherpa frame from Evernew, perfect for the Glampers!
Roza Vetrov from russia makes these titanium cooking sets. I liked the handbuilt quality to them. Inside this is two casseroles, a water flask and a shot glass.
Otto from Onak canoes. The onak is a folding canoe, that you can see in the right side of the pic. Pretty cool
So much gear, so little time. It’s the ultimate orgy for gear lovers! Again, I did my best to walk around, be slightly social and take some shots of gear I thought was interesting and listened to a few keynote speakers.
Western mountaineering throwing it’s hat into the quilt game. Unfortunately I have no info on the quilt as the reps had been busy all day. But if it’s western mountaineering than it will probably be light and excellent.
The Osprey Levity 60. Won the outdoor award for best backpack. Light at 840 grams and rather functional. est. price $240 and release in april 2018. It’s nice to see even the big brands going lighter and lighter.
Toaks had this little alcohol stove on display. At first I thought it was just a little titanium cup that you fill up with alcohol and burn. However when I looked closer I could see the small holes around the rim – Would love to test this out in the field!
My wife thinks we need to invest more in our Glamping lifestyle.. she’s not too happy about sleeping on a tiny slippery mat and sharing a quilt with our son. I think this combination from Exped would work wonders. It’s a two man quilt and sleeping mat. Works wonders for family glampers or SUL hiking buddies.. you choose
Sierra designs had the famous Skurka designed Flex capacitor backpack on display. An excellent looking pack I have to say, something I could certainly see the use in. From tightening down to 40L and if needed can be expanded to 60L.
Unfortunately they didn’t bring the High route tent so I can’t give my impression on it…
Mont-Bell. Oh how I wish thee existed in Sweden. I’ve always been a big fan of Mont-bell and I don’t think it’s because I’ve only been an admirer from a distance. I’m certain they make good, lightweight gear and someday I plan on testing my theory.
Bill from NWApline looking rather happy with himself, as he should. From what I can tell NWAlpine is making some excellent lightweight climbing gear. A cuben rain shirt and an impressive looking cuben tent. NWAlpine is a small cottage manufacturer based out of Oregon.
My thoughts on cuben: while cuben will give any ultralight backpacker wet dreams, if we really are honest with ourselves, the minimal weight savings just isn’t worth the price. I don’t see how cuben will break into the mainstream, or even stick around for too many more years if they don’t look at the cost structure on it.
It’s hard to put into words just how massive the Friedrichshafen event really is. It is quite simply the epicenter of outdoor gear and trade here in Europe connecting manufacturers with agents, distributors, pr and bloggs. If a company wants to break into the european market, this event is a must. I am happy that I gave myself the four days to go through it all.. It’s just massive. With that said I can imagine it’s fairly easy for a company to be drowned out, it was easy to see that many were. Also, it’s very difficult for a company to not only be seen in this kind of enviroment, but to stand out with products.
In general I’m not looking for this years next big thing, and writing about gear is not my biggest passion either, I can however say that some companies did have products that I liked and these I will post here.
Carsten Jost from fastpacking.de looking rather happy at his time at the Outdoor blogger base. A well organised and put together station were all the bloggers of the world (well… atleast some of them?) meet up at network. I have to work on my networking skills 🙂
There were a lot of very interesting tents at the show, many of them would give any ultralight blogger wet dreams, however these I was not allowed to take pictures of.. so, I instead took pictures of the Big Sky international wisp 1.5 cuben tent which I was allowed to take pictures of. The wisp 1.5 is a big brother to their Wisp. So far it’s the only cuben tent on display that I have seen, and the only one on sale in stores in Europe.
Jetboil had some new products to show off. Or atleast the same products with new valve features that allows for much faster boils at around 1.30 minutes per boil. Impressive. Sadly no more Titanium SOL.
This Nordisk tent is incredibly light for a double wall tent, weighing in at 500 or 600 grams (can’t remember now). Even won the award for most innovative product. Honestly though, not knocking the product, but I don’t see how a real live human could fit in this. The top of the loop didn’t even reach my knee caps, that’s how small this tent is.
Hilleberg on the other hand had a product that stood out for me, the Mesh 1 and the Tarp 5 you see here. A real live human can easily fit in this with room to spare. Total weight 710 grams for the tarp and mesh inner, with a few impressive innovations that I would like to show off later. I am in the talks with them now, and hopefully I will be able to use this kit for one of my future outings this year.
