Expedition Kit and Equipment:

A major part of all expeditions is getting your kit right. The right kit for where you are going can make the difference between a cold miserable night and a toasty warm one. It can also make the difference being able to cope with an emergency or first aid situation or not. In this section we hope to build some useful tips and hints of what kit works for us. We'd love to hear from you with your suggestions and reviews.

We work closely with Nomad Travel store in supplying much of the specialist kit for our trips. If you are looking to buy expedition equipment or get travel vaccines we now have a dedicated kit page on their site:

If you are shopping on a bigger scale and want to get expedition kit or just want some advice it is always worth getting in touch as we may be able to get you some bigger discounts from our suppliers.

Travelproof Men's Feugo Jacket

The latest piece of gear sent to me to test by www.nomadtravel.co.uk was the Travelproof Men's Feugo Jacket, a lightweight, packable insulated jacket. It's described as a versatile, warm travel jacket. It has Silcfill high-tec lining, is water repellent, warm when wet and also highly compressible. It even packs to 2 sizes - one for maximum compression for packing and the other making a perfect travel pillow.

So I set out to test it on a damp and blowy weekend of climbing at the beginning of November in the Lakes. It's only fair to say that the jacket is not a technical climbing jacket but as an all-rounder it performed very nicely and I would definitely use it for longer travels. On an overseas trip, often the biggest problem is the range of conditions you experience - climbing through hot and sticky tropical forest to cold windy summits, sweltering desert conditions plummeting to cold nights in camp - so you need something small, light and flexible but which can really keep you warm when conditions demand. In that respect my weekend climbing in the Lakes was the perfect test. Mild November conditions meant the walks into the crags were sticky and warm, standing around belaying in the wind was a great test of its warmth and luckily - the Lakes being the Lakes - I got a good dose of drizzle to test out the waterproofness.

Overall it responded well to all these challenges, it breathed well and didn't overheat me on the walks into the crags. Perhaps most impressive was how it stood up to the Lake District drizzle. On one of those typical days when you constantly debate if the time has come for full waterproofs the rain collected in pleasing droplets on the jacket's surface and ran off and I did stay pleasantly warm all day in spite of a consistent breeze and the fact that it was, afterall November.

On the downsides I am always a fan of a proper hood and the small packaway waterproof one didn't quite tick that box for me. Though I can see the advantage of space saving when the jacket is packed away, when things get really cold a proper hood can add a lot to the cosy warmth of a jacket. Packing the jacket away to make a pillow is a little bit of a gimick, but having said that it doesn't adversely affect the functionality of the jacket and I have to confess collapsing at home on the living room floor I did try the pillow out quite effectively for a good half an hour or so!

So overall I think it's a good jacket - versatile, impressively warm and water resistant and a good addition to my travel bag.

If you'd like to know more about safety and skills in the mountains see our mountain safety course or or get involved in climbing in Borneo.