Duane Raleigh

Price | $368 www.valandre.com/us 4 starsDUCKS CAN'T GET a break. From birth we are taught that they are inferior to their rival, geese. There's the goos...

It's hard to put a price on your head, but mine is apparently worth $60, or exactly what the new AustriAlpin helmet costs. Here's a Field Test review.

The Black Diamond Viper, a high-tech all-terrain tool. Available with either hammer or adze, this fully modular unit is as functional and reliable as your longtime partner, perhaps more so.

Cholatse is an awesome 21,000-foot mountain in the Khumbu region of the Himalaya. Cholatse is also an awesome ice and alpine boot.

The past couple of years, carabiner manufacturers have burned the midnight oil liposuctioning away precious grams. Now, CAMP has unleashed its latest creation, the Orbit Twist Lock, which, weighing 1.85 ounces, is the world's lightest twistlock carabiner (there are lighter screwlocks, such as the 1.46-ounce DMM Phantom.)

The Summit weighs 1 pound 3 ounces, for the 59-cm version without a leash. The few extra ounces and steel head let you set the pick in water ice, often with one swing, and give the adze enough oomph to chop a stance.

Black Diamond enters the stainless-steel crampon arena, replacing its chromoly steel (aka carbon steel) Cyborg, Sabretooth, Serac and Contact (latter two not reviewed) with stainless-steel versions.

The new Black Diamond Fusion is a retooled version of their former mixed and ice tool of the same name, and is heads and tails better.

The all-aluminum Corsa (7 ounces) is the lightest ice axe made. Now, for a few ounces more, you can get the Corsa with Sandvik Nanoflex stainless-steel reinforcements on the pick and spike.

The Cyborg is Black Diamond's teched-out crampon for ice and mixed climbing. Its materials, bindings, finish and adjustments are the same or similar to those used on the Sabretooth, so we'll stick to the details that are different.