UKC

Every year the review team put mountains of gear through some of the most rigorous real-world testing in the business. Some items will always stand out from the crowd, be that for innovation, build quality, or environmental sustainability. So which are our top picks of 2024? 

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I tried on an Oreus at the weekend and it appears to live up to the hype, exceptionally lofty for a light synthetic jacket! Quite hard to quantify indoors but I'd say the level of wind resistance when compared to a similar weight stitch through down jacket might actually make it warmer than a 300-400g down piece.

I assume this is the UKC/UKH gear of the year 2024 **for men** given all 14 items are reviewed by men, and presumably deemed the best in their male focussed opinions. When are you publishing the "UKC/UKH gear of the year 2024 for women" article? Come on, you can do better than this.

Sorry! We do have female reviewers, and subject to their limited availability we try to regularly publish reviews by and for women. But it's unfortunate that the core staff review team all happen to be male: that's purely by accident, not design. 

Where applicable we always mention the availability of gender-specific versions of every product we review (obviously not in the case of a rope or a water filter). In Gear of the Year, if you click the links to the full product reviews you will see that in every case we have mentioned whether the product is available in both women's and men's versions. Almost all of them are.

A lot of the time the only difference between the two will be fit. So other than photography (and yes, representation does matter) I imagine a 'Women's Gear of the Year 2024' would look the same as the one we have - it would still include the same products.

Do our opinions of the products come across as conspicuously male focused? In this case I'm not even sure what that charge means (other than the truism that we all have our own perspective). What different would you hope to see from a female write up of the Oreus or the Force? It would be helpful to know. 

We know we can do better, gender parity in editorial is an ongoing struggle. But I think criticism of this particular gear feature on these grounds is a bit unfair.

Problem? I see no problem. Therefore there is no problem. Sheesh - that's why there is a problem.

I can imagine that for legwear ease of refastening in a hoolie with numb hands or gloves after peeing might make a difference for women (though would still effect men to a much lesser extent for pooing). But yes, other than that it would probably only be fit (though that is very personal anyway) and preference or not for perceived "girly" colours that I can think of.

I mean for clothing fit and features can be make or break. A warm belay jacket that is cut more feminine aka sinched at waist could be a pain when wearing a gear laded harness. Not many midlayer equivalent womens pieces have for example chest pockets or ones sizeable enough that could hold a phone compared to mens. I can think of plenty examples of this.

Climbing shoes again often differ reasonably ie split vs full sole and the rubber used on men's women's models.(This is usually always well covered in the reviews!) The forces mentioned are reasonably popular all round trad shoe/first shoe in the climbing shop I work in- almost always for slighty larger footed men. As are things like generators. Both even as a potential flat edgy trad shoe they are not as preferred by women so much because of perceived clunkiness and I'd often start customers with other options.

I definitely change my climbing shoe and mountain boot recommendations based on foot size and weight of user which gender on average plays a role as this affects stiffness significantly. This can be the different whether a B2 vs B3 is ideal.

Sleeping bags and other insulation pieces it's fairly known women often run colder so this affects what might be overkill or appropriate for uk conditions.