Gear Review: Sea to Summit Dry Lite towel vs. the traditional malong!

Gear review by Cecil Morella (AMCI)
Equipment Adviser, PinoyMountaineer.com

PinoyMountaineer.com is honored to have Sir Cecil Morella of AMCI as its equipment adviser starting May 2009, providing insights on camping gear and equipment in the website’s “Climb Gear” section.

One of the things that you throw into your pack for a trek is unlikely to be used at the mountain: the towel for drying yourself up when washing up at the end of a climb. First-timers often make a common mistake of burdening their packs with bulky items like a beach towel.

For my friends and I the choice boils down to a Sea to Summit Dry Lite microfibre towel or a tube skirt, that traditional Southeast Asian Muslim clothing that usually comes in loud prints and is better known as malong. Neither have the comforting feel of terrycloth, the material used in conventional towels, but both will fold down to a small cube that will not gobble up valuable space that could be used for your other backpacking equipment.

The polyester/polyamide Sea to Summit would be the hands-down choice if bulk and weight were the only considerations. My large-size 24-inch by 48-inch trail towel weighs no more than 5.1 ounces (145 grams), less than that of a shirt. It wicks water off your skin after a bath or a soaking from rain, and, equally important, it dries easily. Unless you have a really huge girth, you can wrap it around your waist to use as a mobile dressing room when pulling on fresh undies.

However, for its price you can buy two or three malong, which, while bulkier and at least three times as heavy, offers unrivalled functionality. It doubles as a blanket and improvised jacket to ward off the cold, something that could come handy inside a tent at altitude. It also performs all the other uses of the Sea to Summit into the bargain.

If you’re a gram-counting minimalist then go ahead and buy the Sea to Summit. Otherwise go find a malong. Get one with less lurid print where available.