We have always let function and material speak for themselves. So it means something to us that our merino wool now travels with someone who asks more of his gear than almost anyone. Jakob Urth is a mountaineer and guide. He climbs for a living, and when he packs, he is critical about one thing above all: the layer closest to the skin.
Who is Jakob Urth
Jakob guides on some of the world's highest mountains, Everest, Makalu, the seven summits, and runs his own, more remote projects on 6,000- and 8,000-metre peaks. He is on the move between 90 and 200 days a year. At home, he collects old books about mountaineering and polar exploration; he has more than two hundred of them, from Nansen's first crossing of the Greenland icecap in 1888 to a first edition of John Hunt's The Ascent of Everest from 1954. His dream is simple and enormous: to climb more 8,000-metre peaks without bottled oxygen, to open new routes in remote corners of the world, and to write more books along the way.
“Passion, strong mind, a helpless romantic with an adventurous personality. I guess that catches me quite well.”
A season on Aconcagua
Aconcagua rises to 6,962 metres, the highest mountain in South America, and Jakob has been returning to it since the early 2000s. As expedition leader, most of the work happens before anyone sets foot on the mountain. The team gathers in Mendoza, among vineyards and 25-degree warmth, before the long trek in to Base Camp at Plaza de Mulas, around 4,300 metres.
From there the mountain is climbed in stages, camp by camp: Camp Canada at about 5,000 metres, Nido de Condores, the condor's nest, at 5,400, and Camp Colera at 5,900, from where the summit push begins. The weather is judged several times a day, by radio to base camp and by satellite forecast. Much of the success comes down to people: Jakob has worked with the same local lead guide for twelve to fourteen seasons, a working relationship that has become a close friendship, and one reason the team puts 80 to 100 percent of its climbers on the summit year after year.
High on the mountain, at Nido de Condores, an enormous condor circles overhead, up to fifteen kilos, with a wingspan over three metres. The final summit push starts in the dark and the biting cold, hours before the sun brings any warmth. On this trip eleven climbers stood on top together. For Jakob, the summit was never the point.
“Being able to lead and guide people to reach their big dreams and ambitions is something quite special.”
What a guide chooses to wear
Most of Jakob's kit, down suits, shells, boots, is a matter of experience and preference. The one place he is genuinely critical is the base layer, the insulating wool worn closest to the skin.
“My inner layers have always been wool. For me there is no other material that protects, performs and keeps me warm like wool of the right quality.”
On an expedition he wears the same layer for five to ten days of hard use, sweat, a heavy pack, temperatures that swing from sun to bitter cold. His tip for keeping it fresh isn't a wash; it is simply to air it out, or at most rinse it in warm water and let it dry in the sun. That is the whole point of merino: it doesn't hold odour, you wash it less often, and it keeps working. On Aconcagua, his LOOW packing list looked like this:
- T-OSS 135 O-Neck, the thin, light tee
- T-OSS 220 O-Neck, the base layer, worn closest to the skin
- ZN-240 Zip Neck, the favourite on cold days and the summit push
- P-240 Merino Sweatpants, for the tent and as a mid-layer
- B-170 Airknit® Boxers, four or five pairs are enough for a full expedition
- HS-50 Merino Socks, wool all the way down
Leave nothing but footprints
Jakob's next expedition takes him to Nepal, to the iconic Ama Dablam (6,812 m) and the smaller Lobuche Peak (6,119 m). The plan is to climb alpine style, self-sufficient from the foot of the mountain to the top, without fixed ropes or Sherpa support, carrying everything up and down themselves. The team even hopes to sleep in a tent on the summit of Lobuche, for the view and the acclimatisation. And they will carry down what doesn't belong up there: rubbish left high on the mountain, brought back down for proper handling.
“This project is about climbing in its purest form, and about leaving nothing behind but footprints in the unique and fragile nature we visit.”
It's a view we share. Buy less, but better. Use it for years. Wash it less. The best thing a piece of clothing can do is come along, quietly, for a long time, whether that's to Camp 3 at 5,900 metres or through an ordinary week.
