Parbat EL 55L and El27L

 

Functionality and simplicity have always been the leading in factor when it comes to
packs or equipment I use when guiding or alpine climbing. A simple tube style pack, minimal or no pockets, and easy axe attachment points have been the key to what I use.A large factor in my decisions for what pack to use is also the base weight. There has not been a pack in the last five year that I haven't trimmed the fat off or added components to, to fit my needs. That is until I began using the Parbat EL line.

Parbat offers a no bullshit pack that does exactly what it is designed to do. carry well and take abuse. Since the end of April/ begin May I have been putting both the El55 and EL27 through the wringer in Washington. Some Stats on both of these, the EL27 weighs in at a feather weight 540g (just over a pound in freedumb units) and the El55 sits at 620g. When empty the pack feels like nothing I'm pretty sure the packaging it came in plus the info cards weigh more. Now the real magic in  these packs lies within the construction, the majority of the pack the material is heat sealed together. This process is the material itself bonding, not bonding it with some type of adhesive, hence a bomb proof bond with way less failure points throughout the pack. Said material is ALUULA, a product from the aeronautical field with one goal, to make the strongest and lightest material possible. They bolster a strength 8x that of steel for its weight. Parbats packs utilize the Graflyte composites throughout the body of the pack with the duralyte used as the base/bottom of the pack. This was another aspect that stuck out to me. Often in the world of fast and light our trade off becomes durability. The dyneema packs that have filled the outdoors the last years often fail around the bottom of the packs where the most friction happens. This is also where the seam tape tends to peel or delamination begins. 

When it comes to wear and tear of products, my full time guiding schedule and free time being spent in the mountains has meant to burn through equipment. Trail runners I'm lucky if I get a full season out of them, working back to 30 day trips with nols or running laps of Rainier grinds most equipment into the ground. At this point in the season, around the half way mark, there is not much wear to be seen on these packs. The system I utilize is that the 27L acts as my dry bag/summit bag inside of my 55L. The Loops on the lower bottom make walking in a harness with this pack super comfy due to me being able to clip my glacier kit and pro there but still be able to to easily grab and unclip the gear. The same goes for the application of these packs in a ski mountaineering setting. My splitboard carries wonderfully even on the 27L version. The simplicity of the attachment systems on the sides of the packs and the axe attachments make for fast transitions. The only qualm some may have, the last few seasons of packs with different companies a rise in the exterior crampon attachment point has been a trend. I prefer having as little as possible on the outside of my pack and don't miss having this option. Generally when I am carrying a heavier load the dry bag on the side of my pack would be carrying the crampons and needed layers and snacks. The 55L has load limit of 19kg but easily carries more than this well although not recommended it is more than strong enough and often when guiding, the nature of things is I will end up carrying client gear.

The last major point of these packs is that in a world of greenwashing, this material is legitimately mendable and recyclable. Parbat uses 98% of each textile element minimizing overall production waste, and the material itself can be recycled into many other materials. Since the packs are made of moving and fixed elements this offers easy repairs from regular wear and tear.

More info on the materials and Parbat

https://aluula.com/our-story/

https://parbat.it/en/

* I am currently an athlete with Parbat and testing equipment, I have bias but strongly believe in these packs and materials.

Meeting an Old Friend

 "When you are totally defeated you begin again to enjoy the small things around you. Just going to the mountains, not for victory or glory, but to enjoy nature or enjoy fine people. If you always succeed you enjoy the admiration of many people. Being defeated means being limited to the basis existential choices of life. If you can enjoy the quiet evening hours it is beautiful; a hero who always succeeds may not have time to enjoy such things." -Wojciech Kurtyka

Inside of my head a version of me lives that is an old, broken, drunk, pill head. He spends his day laboring and nights at a bar stool, chasing his next high and speaking to himself chipping away at whatever self worth may have been left. Clothes hang on him like the bags under his eyes, liver spots dancing across his skin like the youth that once was. Calloused hands grip a glass reflecting the tension of his being.He rears his shit eating grin towards me and comes to play when I enter periods of stress, 

“You’re just another junkie what’re you doing here?” 

“Do you think you’re worth this success?" 

"What’ve you done to repent for the person you were? Why are you trying when a bar stool or curb is your destination”

This internal monologue has ebbed and flowed for the last decade in my brain. I believe for the majority of my recovery I have white knuckled my way through sobriety. The easy part of sobriety is not using. A clear cut path of where the dump truck leads. The hard part is treating the deeply rooted personality flaws and mental health I have left largely unaddressed at times. A snake eating its own tale perpetuates the psyche I feel to be true in the underlying mentality of addiction. Cycles upon cycles, woven together in a mandala of space and time. I convince myself this is my strength in the mountains. A cold night on the mountain or walking through seracs whispering their crushing power through their deep base like groan is nothing compared to the man perched on his bar stool in my brain.

Since moving to Washington I have been a kid in candy store. A mania of alpine climbing, ski mountaineering, and guiding took place. Companies took interest in what I was doing for the first time and I felt recognized for the way I approached my climbing and my work ethic. In this moment is when he began to crawl out of his cavern like an aimless bum emerging from an overpass bivy. As of late I have been left with an inability to head into the mountains. The allure of the peace I generally feel when traveling in the alpine had all but left and instead a solitary cell had formed in my mind. The dancing motions of climbing through mixed terrain feel like a bull in a china shop.

I deeply believe the worth of a climb falls into the approach and ethics we adhere to. A simple, minimal, self supported approach is the way. 

“Success is not a triumph but a necessity… There's no mistaking it: You are only rewarded for the risks you are prepared to take. Once out of context, actions become indefinable. Any will power or ambition that is brought to bear is arbitrary. There are no external, urgent necessities to justify choices of profession, hobbies, or partners; no force or coercion to render life evident. Everything must come from within” (ADILKNO, “Out of Context,” 175)

Alpinism must come from within. The mountain hears,fells, and sees our intentions on how we approach it. The idea of conquering, fkt’s, and going to climb a route because the picture will be featured somewhere render the most important part of alpinism meaningless. The allure of recognition for one’s triumphs in the arena of mountains becomes shallow when achieved. The beauty of success is only actualized between a small team of people standing on an improbable summit done in a single push, with complete faith and love in one another. One can not dance through the mountains with the hope of a monetize-able return from their feat. This is the aspect of my alpinism that I hope to rekindle. My ethics may not be your ethics and that’s the beauty of a contrived activity such as climbing mountains. Style is everything and meaning from climbing comes from within.

I don’t know how long the drunk in will stick around this time. Often seeing him is like seeing an old friend. August sixth will mark a decade of my version of sobriety which is total abstinence. Sobriety,like alpinism, must fit one’s personal ethics and for me that’s total abstinence. That decade I have traveled the world, rekindled broken relationships in my family, had the opportunities of a life time, achieved feats I only dreamed of, and felt and seen beauty in this world that the pessimistic drunk can not conceive. I hope to continue to grow and heal as a human. I am deeply flawed but those flaws make me who I am and will take time to unwind. 

The drunk will hear the last call, bringing him back to earth from the flat circle of time his endless arguments with himself transpire. He’ll collect himself enough to stumble out the bar and through the haze of a Newport wandering his way back to whatever shack he calls home. I want to hug him and give him the warmth he needs to figure out what he needs to figure out. The survivors guilt continues to weigh on him as he curls up on his stoop, leaving him unable to make forward progress in his existence. My ill will to him has grown smaller. I am further from him at this point in my life than any common ground yet I feel more in common with the people I see on the streets of Seattle than my peers in the mountain community. The duality I have felt through out my existence is where he creeps in. Torn between the Netherlands, and the US, between sobriety and degeneracy. Work and personal life. Wondering when the shoe will drop. 

I sit next to my old friend and reminisce on times of chaos and fill him in on where my travels have taken me. The friends who are no longer here join us to fill in the gaps of memory’s lost to the Xanax brown out of my teenage years. We travel through the spaces that held meaning that are no longer there. The basement of launch skate shop would be a fitting setting, now most likely some type of smoothie bar. He fills with laughter and warmth thinking of the good times. I hope he finds a small slice of peace as he wanders of into the realm of dreams and before the cycle continues in the morning.

“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final."

 – Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of Hours.