Gear Test To give you a little background on the test, we wanted to put a few products that were relatively new to us through there paces, and what better way than trying them in the real world. The sleeping bags are the hardest to test, as everyone is different and feel the cold at different levels. The two bags we decided to test on this trip were the Fairydown Adventurer and the Aztec 1300 Techlite, both bags are synthetic and weigh approximately the same around 1.4 kg We new there would be a wide variety of temperatures and hoped the temp would drop to below freezing at the higher altitudes, unfortunately the temp did not drop below 3 degrees. We slept in lodges on beds, higher up the mountain the beds were damp, all these factors contribute to how a sleeping bag performs Aztec 1300 Techlite On the whole this mummy bag performed really well, I found it comfortable to sleep in and quite roomy around the chest area, the two way zip was useful at warmer temps and the night glow zip toggle helped to locate the zip in the dark. and when the temperature dipped I never felt the cold at all and the bag was quite easy to put back in the compression sack. For a bag at this price £45.00 it performed very well Fairydown Adventurer This bag as more volume than the previous and has a higher temp rating -4 to -7 and obviously a higher price £92.00 Again this mummy bag performed very well, not quite as wide round the chest but comes in two sizes, two way zip was great as the temperature dropped the bag took it in it's stride, I would have loved to have taken this bag to its limits, but alas that was not to be on this trip, the bag was a little harder to put back in the capped compression sack. On the whole I was pleased with the performance of both sleeping bags. Moac Boots 650 The start of the trek was mainly wide easy tracks but as we gained in altitude the terrain became arduous and unforgiving, from river crossings to walking glacial Moraine, these boots where light, comfortable, quite rigid, and performed well from the very first day The performance of these boots was excellent Drink Safe Water purifier What I require from a water purifier is two fold, a filter that waterborne pathogens and debris just can not pass through , and secondly a purifier that kills viruses through contact and the Drink Safe system fitted the bill The reason I choose this purifier was that it had all the characteristics of one I already sell, but it was cheaper and on further investigation I found that the way it works is identical to the Aqua pure Traveller. It filters using a porous carbonated 2 micron filter and also has a iodine purification sleeve that fits over the filter , equivalent to adding iodine drops, this needs a contact time with the water of 15mins. I tested two bottles from this company, one was a plane oval shaped bottle called the Explorer with a filter pull top and the other was called a Traveller had a flip top. The Explorer oval bottle with the pull top filter, was excellent I used it everyday in Nepal filling from streams and using the water given by the lodges, it worked very well and I found the shoulder strap and pouch handy. On the other hand the Traveller flip top bottle, worked well on the filtration side ,but the flip top kept on jamming up, and in the end I stopped using it. From this test the explorer performed brilliant on all sides and is a must for adventure travel or anywhere the water is suspect Aztec Nobac Towel This lightweight towel, was put through its paces, even though it was not possible to wash every day, it was light, felt good on the skin, and being a large towel packed away quite small. Its absorption was excellent and dried very quickly, I wanted to see how long the towel would go for before it started to smell, after the trek there was no smell, so I decided to use it down at the gym (3 times a week) and by the end of the forth week it was just starting to smell a little, end of the fifth I needed to wash it, after a quick wash it looked as good as new. I would recommend these towels on any trip