alpine gear Archives - polychromelab

Textile Physics Research on Sports Apparel in Outdoor Lab

Textile physics in an outdoor lab sounds a little confusing, but actually it’s really simple: Textile physics is the knowledge of how textile fabrics like outdoor jackets interact with certain conditions. For the Alpine Proof Outdoor Lab in particular textile physics mean a collective term for several tests examining sports apparel in alpine environments under various weather conditions.

Here at the Alpine Proof Outdoor Lab at Schönjoch 2436 we deal with the treatment of: Heat retention, moisture management, skin friendlyness, colour fastness, aging of textiles, uv radiation, infrared radiation, vaporisation and some other tests. To do so we get support of the Institute for Textile Physics Dornbirn and the Centre for Ski and Alpine Technology Innsbruck.

If you’d like to get to know these dry terms a little better, you should visit the Alpine Proof Outdoor Lab Serfaus Fiss Ladis in person to experience work in alpine regions at first hand.

Abseiling in Iced Waterfall – Occasion for Wearing Alpine Gear

At the beginning of this winter we had installed a spot for abseiling in an iced waterfall to enable this great freeride slope for winter skiing. There’s need of wearing alpine gear to have maximum elbowroom at outdoors work without giving up on protection against snow and coldnees.

Then there was no snow, but anyway it was hard work to fix a climbing rope for abseiling in winter. Since then we had a lot of snowfalls and now, in March, there’s still snow and nearly everything is iced, as well the waterfall. This is the reason why we had installed this spot for abseiling, because otherwise we couldn’t overcome this steep, high cliff on a nice freeride session.

Now you may ask, what for we’re doing all of this? There are two reasons why: First, this freeride route is pretty cool. Unfortunately it is intercepted by this cliff. So without a abseiling spot there’ll be now freeride route. Second, we do fieldtesting. All year long we want to test our products like the polychromelab La Neve Nera winteroverall (worn this time) outdoors under extreme conditions. This way we kill two birds with one stone: we’re enjoying a nice freeride session wearing alpine gear for testing!

Finally, some pictures of our adventure day!

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