Climbing Harnesses
Like other AMC members, mountaineer Trot Chandler, shown at right on the Dents de Veisivi in the Swiss Alps in August 1927, often left the Northeast to climb on other continents. The rope harness he wore was typical of the 1920s and based on German climbing techniques. By the mid-1960s, Germans were basing their designs on military parachute harnesses, while an Englishman, Tony Howard, had crafted a leather harness with leg loops. The real breakthrough in harness technology, though, occurred in 1970. Brit Don Whillans designed the first nylon webbing “sit” harness, consisting of a waist belt and leg loops, for Troll, a manufacturer of climbing gear. The harness was used on an expedition up the South Face of Annapurna in the Himalayas and was considered an immediate success. The harness, with modifications made over the years, eventually became the standard design within the international climbing community.

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See the "Gear of Yesteryear" slideshow.

Parkas
When Rick Estes began his career with New Hampshire Fish and Game in the mid-1970s, the outdoor clothing revolution was just getting under way. Outdoor gear companies had begun testing a new synthetic fabric–Gore-Tex–in sleeping bags, tents, and garments. In the meantime, Sierra Designs’ 60/40 parka was the leading outdoor jacket of its  time. Made of a fabric blend consisting of 58 percent cotton and 42 percent nylon (the ratio was rounded off for marketing purposes), the parka was a top seller for the company
until outerwear made with Gore-Tex and other breathable membranes eventually displaced it.

During the first few years of his Fish and Game tenure, Estes wore a 60/40 jacket in winter as part of his uniform and while on search and rescue operations in the White Mountains. “It didn’t breathe, didn’t repel water, but it was the thing to do,” says Estes. “It was just rugged stuff. Wind-wise, it was all over Polartec. If you were going to go above treeline, that’s what you wanted to wear.” Estes, like most people who hike in winter today, wears waterproof/breathable Gore-Tex or Conduit shell pants and jacket for his outer layer…but the 60/40 parka still hangs in his closet.

Women’s Clothing
In the 1800s, women were climbing mountains in the same Victorian dresses they would wear to stroll in parks–as displayed by the women in this 1893 photo taken at Perch Camp on Mount Adams. AMC member Mrs. William G. Norwell, in the June 1877 edition of Appalachia, described the long skirts of the time as “having proved themselves so inconvenient and dangerous” while hiking. “These garments managed to come in contact with rocks, stumps, and ram’s horn, and sometimes we have known the fair owners of these skirts to be so entangled and made fast, that jack knives had to be brought out to cut them adrift,” she wrote. Norwell believed the solution was a “good flannel bathing suit.” Although that fashion wasn’t widely adopted as a hiking costume, other alterations did occur.

According to Rebecca Brown, author of Women on High: Pioneers of Mountaineering, women had begun to wear shorter skirts by the turn of the 20th century. Hems eventually reached only to the knees, and modified bloomers and knickers were worn, with or without a skirt overlay. Brown writes that by the end of World War I, “skirts were the exception, rather than the rule, for mountain travel.” While most women today hike in shorts or pants, in 2004 Brown climbed portions of Mont Blanc in France dressed in period costume to recreate earlier women’s mountaineering adventures. Her long Victorian skirt was “just a total mess” in deep snow because she couldn’t see her feet and “immediately difficult” on inclines where she had to constantly pull it up. Brown did, however, enjoy the mobility that the skirt afforded on better surfaces. As a result, she now often wears a short, modern trekking skirt when she hikes.

Her experience wearing traditional clothing also rekindled her love for wool. “For layering, I’ve just found it really superior to a lot of the synthetics,” says Brown. “It’s more durable, it’s relatively light and warm…and I like the fact that it’s a sustainable resource.”

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