Adrian Ballinger, Marmot Athlete and owner of Alpenglow Expeditions, demonstrates his Marmot layering system from Alpamayo, Peru. Featured products include the Ama Dablam Jacket, the Exum Jacket, Power Stretch Half-Zip, the Scree Pant and more.
Learn more about Adrian and Alpenglow Expeditions on marmotpro.com.
TRANSCRIPT
Hi there, I’m Adrian Ballinger, Marmot team and Alpenglow Expeditions.
We’re up here at 18,200 feet on Alpamayo. We’re actually at a cold camp right now between Alpamayo, which we climbed yesterday in very full on conditions - and tomorrow we’re hoping to climb back this way - Quitaraju. Both of these peaks are almost… one’s just under 6,000m (just under 20,000 feet) and one’s a little over 20,000 feet. Part of the famous Cordillera Blanca chain of Peru. I thought about what better place to talk about some of the Marmot gear that I use out here than being up here. It’s been keeping me warm and dry in some pretty serious conditions.
So I’m sort of suited up for what I wear going out on a big 20,000 foot peak, and I’m just going to do a little strip tease here and show you what I’ve got.
So on the outside I have an Ama Dablam Jacket. This isn’t the warmest down jacket that Marmot makes but it’s super warm for its weight and it’s very compressible. So it’s a great climbing jacket. It’s got good features like a nice puffy hood that goes over a helmet well and adjusts and still allows me to see easily from side to side. It’s got good pockets for hanging out in camp. All around just a great ultralight jacket, I’ll show you as I take it off. You know a lot of down jackets you put in your backpack and you can’t even get anything else in there. This one will stuff down to a little more than a Nalgene bottle so it’s really a great layer. I live in this everywhere, from California and Colorado ice climbing to cold mornings rock climbing to out in the big mountains. So that’s the Ama Dablam Jacket.
From there we go to the Exum jacket. This is sort of a top of the line GORE-TEX® shell that Marmot’s making. It’s made out of the Pro Shell, the new GORE-TEX® Pro Shell material. It’s got great looks with the zippers and everything. But most of all it’s super functional. Again, a great hood for the helmet, which I don’t have on right now. Good pit zips under here that are easy to get to and open up and give me a lot of venting when I’m in the mountains warming up, breaking trail. And waterproof zippers on the outside, a good covered zipper on the main chest; easy adjustments for the hood and things like that. So again, this is another layer that I live in. It’s the best GORE-TEX® jacket I’ve worn. Good internal pockets as well for keeping things warm like Goo packets and bars while I’m climbing.
Underneath that I wear another mini-puffy jacket. This one’s synthetic – it’s called the TR6 jacket. It actually zips into some of Marmot’s layers. I don’t generally zip it in, but I love wearing it underneath my GORE-TEX®. Since it is synthetic, if I sweat a little bit that’s ok. It’s wind resistant obviously if I wear it without the GORE-TEX® jacket. Again it’s got great pit zips under here so that I have great ventilation even though I’m in a synthetic puffy layer. And this one goes pretty small as well. All of these layers, you might have noticed have the Napoleon pocket. I’m a huge fan of the Napoleon pocket in the mountains - you can put your camera in there you can put your sunglasses in there, medications….really a great, great pocket. That’s the TR6. It works well in town as well. I find myself wearing it an awful lot, everywhere I go.
And the last upper body layer I have on right now other than just an Alpenglow t-shirt underneath is my Marmot Power Stretch. The Power Stretch ¾ zip gives me good ventilation. I’ve still got the pocket that I want. It’s a great little snot nose wiper right there, which I find myself using a lot. Kind of gross but you need it in the mountains. And just a good all-around warm layer. So that’s that.
On my lower body, I’ve got the Alpine Pants. These are GORE-TEX® Pro Shell as well. Absolutely fantastic layer – they breathe well, they’re durable, they’re not too heavy. They have the suspenders which I really need since I’m a little bit skinny. Good pockets here for anything I want to carry as well as full zips down the sides so I can take these off. I can vent them using the zips or I can take the pants fully off using the zips. And also that gives me the rainbow seat for answering those calls of nature that we all have out in the mountains. It’s super important to have an easy system to be able to drop those pants to do what you need to do without having to take off all your upper body layers. So that’s my outer layer and then don’t worry this isn’t going to get too crazy, mom…
Underneath those, I actually wear another layer of pants that can be used for a lot of different things. These are the Scree Pants. They’re a lightweight pant. I can use them when I’m trekking in to the peaks. Then once I get up high here, they become just a layer of GORE-TEX® pants – they make a great warmth later as well as being a wind-resistant, water-resistant outer layer when I’m down lower in the mountains. Underneath that I might have a layer of long underwear depending on the temperatures.
So … that’s my Marmot gear – that’s what I wear when I’m out here in the mountains. And there’s lots more information about all of these on the marmot.com website. Thanks for listening.
