Flying 18 hours from Brisbane to Vancouver to San Francisco is a good test for how a shirt will feel over the long term, long aeroplane rides really do have a way of bringing the worst out of your clothing. With only a quick deodorant spray in the morning we set off and I was pleasantly surprised. The vertical chest pocket was perfect for holding my passport and boarding pass. Plus, the shirt was more comfortable to sleep in than the aeroplane chair and as a bonus it helped me win a few armrest wars. After all this there was no noticeable odour… from the shirt.
Arriving in Yosemite Valley we got too excited and jumped straight onto the first 5 pitches of the nose. I am not the best aid climber and boy was it a fight to get myself up there. Some fun comments I received from other climbers included “this isn’t a best dressed competition”, “does dressing up make you climb better?” which it doesn't, and my personal favourite was “the job interview is down there”.
In hindsight I should have rolled my sleeves up but as I have been burnt too many times by the Australian sun and didn’t want to risk it. So I did lose a few buttons, one off each forearm and one off the left wrist.
Now this is no fault of the shirts as no button could survive the torment I put that shirt through. What I will say is there were no loose or pulled threads on the shirt, in fact it looked completely unscathed. I only noticed I was missing buttons when I went to roll my sleeves up at the end of the day. With 2 hours of driving and 6 hours of climbing, the shirt had a minor noticeable odour. So like a responsible climber I threw it in the corner of my tent where it would be ready for me the next day.
It truly is a lovely moment when you realise how fit you are. The day before was a slog so today we needed a confidence booster. With a quick spray of deodorant I unrolled my strategically thrown shirt and was good to go. We hiked in and smashed out a couple hundred meters of multi pitch climbing. The vertical chest pocket easily fit my Google Pixel 8 Pro phone (naming it so you can check the size, I wish Google sponsored me) while the horizontal pocket was packed with lip balm and muesli bars.
At this point there were some obvious chalk marks on the back of the shirt, due to climbing chalk, and it honestly still didn’t smell too bad. I spent the day shoving my arm into cracks, now with rolled sleeves as I know better, and the Venture held up amazingly. The only real signs of wear and tear were some sweat patches and a dirty back from a 6 meter off width section. This was a pretty slippery chimney section where I had to scrape my back up the wall with my feet pushed out the wall in front of me. There is no grace to this, it is brutal, humbling and dirty.
At the end of the day the shirt smelt way more like me but a quick brush off had it looking impressively clean. There were no pulled threads and no new missing buttons. I was chuffed. So, I hung it up to air dry, knowing it had a few more good days in it.
This is a rinse repeat story. Climbing/hiking, getting smelly, leaving the shirt to air out, and the shirt holding up. Each day it smelt more and more like armpit but I was in the valley having a blast on some big walls and didn’t care. The shirt survived an overnight on the South Face of Washington Column where we slept on a rock ledge, my old Mont Brindabella kept me nice and warm during the 0-3C degree night. Side note to the Mont Staff, can you please let me know the best way to wash and retreat my 7 year old sleeping bag as it needs a bit of TLC after this trip. (Sleeping bag care guide)
Overall I did not treat the shirt well, it had been scratched, scraped and hauled up kilometers of rock and I can’t speak highly enough of it.
There is no beating around the bush here. I had used up all my available underwear and had been wearing the same shirt and trousers every day. So, like a responsible adult, I took my laundry into the shower with me (dm me for the Curry Village shower code) and gave them a wash. All it took was an afternoon drying on a climbing rope washing line and the Mont Venture came out looking fresh off the shelf, minus a couple buttons that some muppet had lost earlier.
This shirt rocks. I treated it like crap and showed me nothing but love. It's functional, sexy, and surprisingly resilient. Now while I did buy two colours, I wore the red one for a week straight just to see how far you can push it and it was my underwear supply gave out first. The pockets easily fit a large mobile phone, so you know its secure on your adventure. And the fabric moves with you as you rock climb kilometers of rock over several days.
I cannot recommend the Mont Venture shirtenough. Mont, let me know when you make more colour options and please send me more spare buttons as I have run out.
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We were probably twenty electrolyte tablets deep each, feeling more like science experiments than cyclists. Add in sketchy tarmac with trucks roaring past, hogging the whole shoulder, and you had a section that demanded laser-sharp focus…
I had brought my Mont Helium 680 with me. A luxurious bag rated to -12°C for warm sleepers, it is perfectly suited to Tasmania’s cooler months. Ice crusted the ground and tent the next morning and checking my temperature sensor I was surprised to see that the temperature had dropped to -7.7°C overnight. That is remarkably cool for late October in Tassie!
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