Research

By Colin Montgomery Background Last week we looked at the caloric demands of Crux Award Winner Ryan Burke’s Teton Traverse. This week we dive into the details of what he will be eating when and why. We needed to find a way to provide the most calories for the least weight while still fueling him […]

by Colin Montgomery   Background: Ryan Burke our 2016 Crux Award Winner,  will be completing an entire traverse of the Teton Range in mid August. Ryan’s event will last 7 days and cover 102 miles and over 100,000 ft of elevation gain/loss. As part of programming for Ryan’s Teton Traverse, we’re developing a nutrition and […]

By Christina Heilman, PhD, ATC, CSCS   Although manufacturers use a theoretically sound standard to test the performance of sleeping bags, the testing standards are inconsistent (McCullough, 2009).  Manufactures of sleeping bags adhere to the standard of EN 13537, which was created by the European Outdoor Group, companies around the world who make and supply […]

  Background We sought to analyze which supplements and candy bars provide the greatest caloric density per ounce and are therefore ideal for during event nutrition. We analyzed the most popular supplements seen in endurance sports and compared them by calories per ounce, caffeine per packet, and cost per ounce. We didn’t analyze commonly prepared […]

By Colin Montgomery Backcountry travel requires athletes to be pack-weight conscious. One of the weight-focused questions frequently arises is how many fuel canisters to bring for the cook stove. So we did a JetBoil Deep Dive using a JetBoil Flash stove and asked these three questions: How many water boils/many meals are achieved by a […]

Testing the breathability of fabrics on the treadmill.    This Mini-Study was first published in Sommer 2016   By Kyle Bochanski and Liza Sarychev In March, MTI completed a study that compared the breathability of five rain coats. Three used Gore-tex fabric ($200 to $600), one used NanoPro ($100) and another used PVC ($15). We […]

By Colin Montgomery An analysis of popular backcountry freeze-dried meals from leading food manufacturers reveals that Mountain House brand meals are the most calorically dense per ounce of weight, and the second-cheapest in terms of cost per ounce. Three popular backcountry meals from four manufactures were were analyzed: Chili Mac Chicken and Rice Pasta and […]

“La Sportiva Stratus Hi-Cube Ski Mountaineering Race Boot. Carbon Fiber, under 2 pounds/pair. Cost …. $2500! “

by Kyle Bochanski   Rucking Rules A few years ago MTI posted an article reviewing previous studies to create a list of “5 Military Rucking Rules Every Backpacker Should Know”. Some of these rules we tested again as we developed our MTI Route Card. We wanted to ensure accurate predictions of rucking times based on distance, […]

Mountain Athlete Mike Mock climbing at the Fins, Idaho.   By Kyle Bochanski In March 2016, MTI studied the effect of fear-induced stress on ice climbers. In June 2016, we conducted a preliminary follow-up study with a rock climber. Our ultimate goal is to develop a research methodology that allows us to determine how much fear […]