Mont Bell. It’s a very expen­sive back­pack­ing gear shop in Boul­der, Col­orado. It’s the Japan­ese company’s flag­ship store in the USA.

I have been into back­pack­ing gear since about 1974. I love the state-of-the-art stuff, and it doesn’t get any more on the edge than Mont Bell. Any back­packer can tell you that light­ness is king. As you can tell from the photo, this parka in the win­dow weighs just 13.8 oz!

Sadly, my bud­get didn’t stretch for the parka I was lust­ing after (a dif­fer­ent one), even though it was dis­counted about a third. Sigh. But that didn’t stop me from appre­ci­at­ing the beauty of their design and functionality.

p.s. A foot­note, if you are a Boulder-lover... Andrew has a great post on the best places to eat breafast in Boul­der. Again, sadly, Heather and I are very rarely in Boul­der at breakfast-time.