After 65 years of collaborating with outdoor apparel and equipment manufacturers, Peter Whittaker and his team of guides at RMI Expeditions decided it was time to develop gear themselves. The longtime mountaineer and climber turned to Polartec to help make MtnLogic — a complete collection of outdoor apparel built exactly how Whittaker and his team need it to function for their jobs as guides.
If you recall, Whittaker entered into a partnership with Eddie Bauer back in 2008 to create the First Ascent line of technical climbing apparel. Despite huge amounts of marketing dollars thrown at the brand and its success (still my favorite climbing gloves) of exceeding $40 million in annual sales, Eddie Bauer terminated the relationship with Whittaker in 2015. Bad for First Ascent but good for us, as this is where MtnLogic was born from. This time around, however, he went straight to one of the best fabric suppliers on the market to create his own collection instead of partnering with a brand.
All the pieces from MtnLogic are designed by climbers and mountaineers for performance above tree line. Dubbed alpine workwear, it’s not about what is trendy or fashionable at the moment but what a mountain guide would actually wear while on the job. More than 60 RMI guides helped to design the collection during a 12-month period, testing over 7,000 pieces of apparel through over 1.2 million vertical feet of climbing. All pieces are manufactured in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Whittaker and his team ended up with the perfect apparel system, the base of which is all Polartec Power Wool — you spend days, sometimes months, wearing the same base layer on an expedition so stink is a huge issue. Within the entire 19-piece collection, you will also see NeoShell and I really hope some Alpha and Alpha Direct insulation.
The Power Wool hoody you see in the video from Outside below is the bomb — a loose hood to protect your face from the sun, long arms to cover the backs of your hands, and longer torso length so it won’t ride up under your harness. Brilliant.
The MtnLogic collection will be available in April from the company website as well as at Whittaker Mountaineering at the base of Mt. Rainier.