User Review: Black Diamond Blizzard

Black Diamond Blizzard
Above: The current Blizzard, which may differ slightly from the version reviewed.

Reviewed October 19, 2007 by Bart

Rating:

This is a great harness for ice, and I would echo all of the positive things said in the previous two reviews.

There is one detail that I found could be improved, and that is the layout of the ice clipper slots. They are situated in a way that they pretty much overlap the gear loops. If you rack a few screws on a clipper, it's hard to use the gear loop for racking your other necessities. I tried this both with the loops under the clipper, as well as with the loop running through the clipper and both ways had their limitations.

The slots are so close together that it's not practical to put two clippers directly side by side once they are full of screws. This means that on longer ice climbs where you might want to have more than one clipper of (4-5) screws per side, you have to space them out and you lose usage of your other gear loop in the mix.

The number and position of the slots are not universal. There are less slots up front on the right side, the side where I would like to carry extra screws because it's my favourite placement hand... Bummer.

I would have preferred having the same layout on both the left and right side of the harness, and maybe some extra slots between/behind/in front of the gear loops allowing the option of clippers being used without interfering with the loops.

The actual clippers work great. They are easy to clip and un-clip in all conditions. The harness is comfortable, fully adjustable, and tough. It is easy to walk in even on long snow routes at altitude. Would I buy this again? Definitely!