Background information

Even a short trip usually requires loads of gear. Credit: Ari Paulin, Shot on 2011-12-23 Photo taken in Tampere, Länsi-Suomen lääni, Finland.(c) (c) 2010 Ari Paulin, licensed under: (c) 2010 Ari Paulin.

Back in the day I collected plenty of various information about mountaineering equipment in Finnish that can be found in Gear Guide This section is not updated anymore (hasn't been for several years), so it is certainly badly out of date in many ways.

• Equipment info. Collection of articles on this site.
• Nut museum. By Stéphane Pennequin at Needle Sports.
• The Cam Book. Friends and other SLCD (spring loaded camming devices) have always been difficult to understand at the best of times - and to the uninitiated they can be a nightmare. Thats why in 2002 Wild Country published 'The Cam Book' - and in depth look at Friends and cams in all their forms and the principles that guided their development, and guides their operation and use. This book was immensely popular, combining a bit of science with a lot of common sense about using one of the most essential pieces of equipment ever made - the Friend. So click below to download your copy and learn a lot more about how to use (rather than abuse) these brilliant protection pieces.... At Wild Country.

Shopping

In the current days, there's no real shortage either on gear or information about it. Whenever in the marked for major new kit, my process is usually as follows:

Gather information about available options

Usually I get information about the available tools in one of the following ways:

• Read about them in magazine, website or discussion forum
• Look for info about some type of gear with search engine or browsing webshops
• Tumble into something when looking for something else in shops

Decide on what to buy

Loads of magazines publish tests of gear. So magazines either in traditional paper form or electronic ones are good places to start. Back that up with manufacturer websites and shops and it is relatively easy to find out what gear is available. That being said, in current days various websites, particularly discussion forums, gear review sites and blogs are great places to gather first hand information how others have found various pieces of kit. As these are filled with personal opinions of regular users, it may be brutally honest. However, as mileage, views and usage patters vary, take everything you read with healty dose of grain of salt. Further word of warning though, this can easily lead to countless hours wasted in hunting informations.

Decide where to get it

Once I have identified what I find, I start to research where I can get it. Ideally I'd buy locally but is often not an options either due to limited availability or prices way higher than on elsewhere. Unfortunately this often means that I have to order say boots without being able to actually fit the model. Which tends to lead for me to stick to brands & models I now fit me. Various Price comparison websites are great tools to find out where you can get what you are looking for most affordably. However, these seldom do a perfect job unless you are comparing local shops on a local website, as price comparison sites seldom are 100% up to date and usually comparison results don't have correct info about availability and cost of packaging and shipping. Not to mention possible customs and/or additional taxes you may be liable to pay.

Reviews

• Equipment info. Collection of articles on this site.

Price comparison

• Geizhals.at. Der Geizhals-Preisvergleich existiert seit 1996 als unabhängige Preisvergleichs-Plattform im WWW. Zunächst wurde der Preisvergleich als Hobby-Projekt betrieben. Aufgrund der großen Beliebtheit wurde 1999 die Umwandlung in eine kommerzielle Website im Rahmen eines Einzelunternehmens vollzogen. Mit der Gründung der Preisvergleich Internet Services AG im Juni 2000 und der Finanzierung durch die e-matrix Online Business Development AG gelang der endgültige Durchbruch und wurden die Weichen für eine erfolgreiche Weiterentwicklung und Expansion gelegt.
• Guenstiger. guenstiger.de ist der unabhängige Preisvergleich im Internet. Mit guenstiger.de lassen sich systematisch die Preise von mehreren tausend Online-Shops, aber auch lokalen Geschäften in ganz Deutschland vergleichen. Der Preisvergleich von guenstiger.de wurde auch von der Stiftung Warentest positiv bewertet. Hervorgehoben wurde dabei unter anderem die besondere Anwender-freundlichkeit des Dienstes.
• Shopwiki.co.uk. ShopWiki brings you 33.540 UK stores with 48.031.866 products for sale online. Try searching for any product, common and uncommon, chances are we'll be able to help you find a store that sells it.
• Vertaa.fi. By far the largest price comparison site and one stop shop at that. They cover pretty much everything, but depending on the area, range of shops included may not be exhaustive.

Shops

• Gear shops. Gear shops (mainly European).

Manufacturers

See manufacturer websites for products info. Some manufacturers keep all kings of additional information handy. For example size chart can be very valuable when ordering something from webshop without a possibility to try it on.