Despite the fact that bouldering crash pads have become a staple product – often for kudos and advertisement reasons, rather than actual profitability – for most climbing hardware and software manufacturers over the last few years, Wild Country have until now remained out of the fray.

Right: Andy Hebson testing the Touchdown at Scout Crag, Yorkshire.

In truth, Wild Country have been involved in the crash pad market for a fair few years, via their connection to, and distribution of, renowned rock boot supplier, Red Chili – who have for some time held crash pads on their product portfolio. The Red Chili pads have taken on various guises over the years; however one thing remained true with most incarnations: value for money. As many of you who have purchased lower priced pads will be aware, the cheaper products generally have poorer grade foams and fabrics, less well thought out designs, and thus don’t tend to last as long as the more premium priced crash pads available – not to say all higher priced pads are good; but that’s a whole other issue.

In entering the pad race with their own branded products, Wild Country have decided – rightly in my view – to place their new lines at the top-end of the market, in an effort to compete with the likes of Moon, Snap and DMM. Here we take a look at the new mid-sized pad, the Touchdown, to see how it stacks up against the products of the aforementioned brands, in terms of specification and design.

Over the last month or so I have been testing the Touchdown pad, in Yorkshire, Lancashire and the Lakes District. As a fairly active boulderer I’ve been using the Touchdown as secondary pad, in conjunction with my larger Moon Warrior. However, for the occasional boulderer or entry-level climber this product would be great as a main pad. In my view this size of hinged pad (100cm x 90cm x 9cm) makes the best design for a secondary crash pad, as its lower profile and slightly smaller size make it much easier to carry over the shoulder (along with you main pad, carried in rucksack mode) than the taco style pads, which without doubt make the best primary/main pads – Wild Country cover this base with their new larger offering, the ‘Big Air’.

Below: The author testing the Touchdown at Red Wall, Trowbarrow Quarry, Lancashire


Design
For a simple a product the Touchdown is packed with features, but manages to retain a clean and usable feel. Like the DMM Highball pad, the Touchdown is armed with a detachable foot mat, which is great for cleaning your boots or keeping your feet clean when starting problems which require the pad to be somewhere other than below the starting holds. The carry system is interchangeable between a rucksack configuration and a simple over-the-shoulder setup, whilst the buckles are ‘unbreakable’ steel. There is also the usual suitcase style carry handle for general maneuvering of the pad, in and out of cars etc. Another really good feature is the inbuilt Velcro panels for connecting multiple Touchdown pads, to make one large but stable pad, these cover over when not in use - years back I had a couple of “Deep Eyes” pads, from Spain, which offered this feature and having used it extensively I can vouch for its worth. The main hinge of the pad also Velcro’s together, helping to further stabilize the pad when open on uneven ground.

Materials

The foam is of a superior quality to almost all other pads I have seen or used in recent times. The hard closed-cell foam is super dense and seems particularly resilient to wear/impacts, whilst the open-cell foam is also dense, and holds its shape well – this layer must maintain good ‘spring-back’, so the pad retains its shape and impact protection. All too often consumers and manufacturers get overly concerned about the quality of the closed-cell foam, seemingly unaware that it is equally important to have high quality open-cell foam in partnership with the harder, impact layer of closed-cell foam.

Left: Close up of the buckles and internals of the Touchdown.

The outer fabrics used are also unusually high quality, with a 500 Denier DWR (durable water resistant) Cordura top and 1600 denier waterproofed and DWR treated base, making for a hardwearing and highly water resistant pad. The aesthetics are also good, with the black base, blue landing zone and yellow ‘spray’ logo making for a nice bright backdrop in your action photos.

Summary
All in all this is a great pad and providing it retains the levels of usability it has shown over the test period – which I'm fairly sure it will – for a year or two, it is sure to become a well loved and well seen pad on hills and moors, throughout the UK. As stated above the foam used is particularly solid, which is noticeable from the moment you use the pad. Whilst it may, perhaps, seem a bit too solid at first, I would advocate Wild Country’s use of such foams, as it will increase the longevity of the pad and make it a much more viable product for use when highballing. If I were forced to pick-up on one design drawback, I would call attention to the carry strap, which whilst fine when in use, can irritatingly detach (via the buckles slipping off) the moment you put the pad down. This is fine when in rucksack mode as it is still connected to the pad, however if you are using it in an over-the-shoulder style then it’s no too hard to envision losing the strap, especially at crags/areas with uneven or rocky bases. Overall it’s great to see Wild County coming up with a top-end crash pad, which ticks all the boxes and compliments the rest of their ever improving range.

Purchase the Wild Country Touchdown Crash Pad here.