Alpinism is the ultimate sport in which everybody is a winner. An Alpine school of self-discipline, maneuvering within your limits, belayed and secured by friends you trust......pushing your limits constantly.

In this high altitude school, you learn to know your limits, up against forces out of your control, an accident can happen anytime.....And that's just the way it is. To summit does not make you more a winner than a climber hit by a falling rock becomes a looser.

Accidents are simply part of the game. In 1983 André Vandeputte (see Odin page) was killed by lightning in the French Pyrenees, in 1986 Maurice and Lilliane Barrard was last seen by Wanda Rutkiewitcz at C5 on K2. Hallucinating famous last words: Can you see Maurice, the living are descending? I don't give a shit about the living - Lilliane! Wanda was also the last to leave UK climber Alain Rouse in a storm-broken C5 tent. Hallucinating, Alan was in his sleeping bag, trying to melt snow by placing his water bottle between his legs so he could rehydrate before attempting the descent. Alan never managed to descend.

This is the sort of price that the pioneers paid at the beginning of the no extra O2 adventure. Any mistake was paid cash. Today, happily climbers have learned from these terrible experiences. At Valandre we pay tribute to the pioneers and to all their followers.

Wanda made it down, just to meet her final moments on Kangchenjunga May 12th 1992, climbing her 9th 8000. Eighteen years laterOh Eun Sun, then Edurne Pasaban became the first two women to climb the 14th 8000s. You see, at Valandre we don't forget Wanda!

Dr Eike Mrosek, Swiss German Alpine rescue doctor. Everest summit 2003.

The Thor sleeping bag was introduced in 1988 under the name Nuptse 1300. The Nuptse (THOR) was designed as a winter high altitude expedition bag. In the Eighties, the Poles started some of the most astonishing Himalayan winter climbs. Names like Krysztof Wielicky, Laszek Cichy, Jerzy Kukuczka and Artur Hajzer literally atomized the notion of the word "the limit", and it was Wielicky/Cichy that opened the Grand Bal by a February winter climb of Everest 1980.

The Nuptse was developed from Maurice Barrard's Makalu concept bag in which the straight H box walls were slanted allowing to "stuff" the bag with a maximum of down. But "slanting" changes the essence of the bag. As the baffles in the Odin are in a 90°, we use a baffle height of 9 cm, but once slanted into a 45°, 14 cm baffles are needed. This difference in baffle width (height) changes the empty weight of the shell from 650g in M for the Odin, to 720g in a M size Thor.. The second difference between the Odin and the Thor is that the Odin is a 27 compartment bag while the Thor is a 26 compartment bag. Otherwise they are identical.

It can be discussed whether "slanting the baffles" does just have the unwelcome side-effect, of adding unnecessary weight to the sleeping bag shell and increasing the compressed volume.

Whatever......once filled with 50,2oz (1424g) of a totally mature and specially selected gray goose 95/05, the Thor does not weight more than 75.6oz (2144g).

This weight is not the end of this world....the temperatures that the bag can withstand, may very well be!

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