Kahtoola Microspikes Traction System
December 11, 2008
A great holiday gift. I know my mom loved them, and I don’t have to put ice melt on the driveway when she comes to visit anymore. $53.08 at Backcountry.com.
So, one thing I’ve learned about gear is that everyone needs a lot of it. And the reason you need a lot of it is that it’s all about the “in-betweens”. You might have a great jacket for climbing Denali, but when you’re at sea level and it’s merely “a bit chilly” and not “80 degrees below zero” you need something to wear that isn’t too Ed Viesturs-ish but is still warmer than a T-shirt. See – the “in-betweens” need to be covered.
And the same is true with non-slip footwear accessories. On Denali, you need crampons. On your driveway in summer, you need flip-flops. But sometimes you need something “in-between.” And for all those various snow-ice-slippery-surface combinations, you need all different types of grippy things for your footwear. For those days where little rubber things covered in metal spirals, or little thumbtacks turned upside down and glued onto your shoes just won’t do it, you need the Kahtoola Microspikes.
Many styles of ice grippers rely on stretchy rubber to hold them onto boots and shoes, and most of the time these work fine as long as the wearer is on perfectly level and bare ice. Loose snow tends to peel them off and leave them, cold and alone, lost forever. Can you tell I’ve been watching angsty emo television? Anyway, Kahtoola obviously can’t bear the thought of its Microspike ice grippers entombed in an icy living death (for pete’s sake, where is this stuff coming from???) because they’ve addressed that issue with a better design for the, er, rubbery part that holds the grippers on the boots. The grippers themselves are almost a kind of mini-crampon – no cute little thumbtacks here. These are SPIKES, folks. As in, do not forget to take these off before you get into your car.
And they are effective spikes. They stay on, even in loose snow, and for me that is important because there is nothing more slippery than ice covered in loose snow. I mean, that is just DEADLY. They pack into a pretty conveniently small jumble, and as long as you’ve got them in a tough-ish case, you can carry them in your pack as a light alternative to crampons. I, for one, will be carrying them in my winter-gear duffel in my car, because they are just the kind of thing that I might someday need really badly. Far superior to common ice-grippers, the Kahtoolas are the way to go.
