Leg Jackets

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1. A valuable part of my gear

   Dear Wiggy –
   
   I just returned from a four-week climbing expedition to Canada’s Northwest Territories. Several of your products helped make the trip warm, dry, and enjoyable and I wanted to share some details.
   
   My sleeping bag system consisted of the Desert rectangular bag paired with the Ultralight mummy. I used both in base camp, for a roomy and extremely warm sleeping set-up that also allowed space inside to contain water bottles and footwear. But the real test came on our main mountaineering objective, a vertical, 2500-foot granite buttress called the Phoenix.
   
   Weight and bulk were critical, since all supplies for our four-man team had to be hauled up the wall, so I took only the Ultralight bag. Instead of using a bivi sack, as I’d always done previously on walls—with generally unsatisfactory results—I paired the bag with a Wiggy’s Cagoule for shelter.
   
   One evening, as we prepared to spend a night on a tiny ledge about midway up the route, a cold drizzle started, and would keep up the entire night. The perch I was on proved to be much too sloping to use: when I got into my bag I found I’d just slide off, coming tight against my harness tie-in. The cagoule, however, allowed me to rearrange the rocks on my ledge, while still remaining sheltered from the weather. I quickly managed to build a cradle-like spot that kept me from slipping off. Once construction was over, I pulled my arms out of the cagoule sleeves and slept with them inside.
   
   The cagoule hood was much more weatherproof than the always-problematical bivi-sack closure. I could sit and doze comfortably in a knee-up sitting position, and by using a small foot sack (my climbing pack also would have worked) I could stretch out full length. When the drizzle turned to a rain/snow mix, the bag proved more than warm enough. Even where I had let the foot get directly rained on, the bag held absolutely no water other than some dampness in the shell. This will be my regular system from now on!
   
   I also experimented with the Wiggy’s Leg Jackets, and I will be using these more in the future. Layering is key to staying comfortable in the rapidly changing conditions on a rock wall, but because of your harness and the need to stay tied in, it’s very difficult to add bottom layers during a climb. The leg jackets solved this problem, providing an amazing amount of warmth, slipping on easily without me needing to untie, and leaving my harness gear and belay loops completely unobstructed. I think I could even use these in place of a sleeping bag for bivouacs, since I always carry a warm jacket anyway and really only need lower-body insulation. I’ll let you know how that works out!
   
   When my partners started stirring the next morning—I won’t say “woke up,” since I’m pretty sure they didn’t sleep—I could tell they had not been as cozy and comfortable as I. Fortunately, they were young and strong and climbed well anyway, and late the next day we succeeded in reaching the summit of the Phoenix. Despite my vote to make another wall bivouac on the way down, my partners, their bags still damp, overruled me, so we rappelled all through the next night, and made it down safely. Thank you, Wiggy’s, for that extra night’s sleep!

   – Jeff Achey