Alpinist's Mountain Standards gear team has put two items from Metolius through real-world climbing use: the Hardtop Helmet and the Crack Gloves. Both come in notably cheaper than rival brands, and the verdict is that they hold up well enough to deserve a spot on your shopping list — with a few caveats.
The Hardtop Helmet costs $64.95 and lands in a strange spot: it's light enough that it barely registers in your hand, but it isn't technically ultralight. The S/M size weighs 250 grams (8.8 oz), while a comparable competitor comes in at 170 grams. The difference is 2.8 ounces and roughly $105. Whether that trade-off makes sense depends entirely on how much you count grams — alpine climbers squeezing every ounce out will pay up; everyone else will be happy pocketing the savings.
Construction-wise, the helmet uses an ABS hardshell crown for top-down impact protection over an Expanded Polypropylene foam core, with a glossy outer finish that shrugs off scrapes. One design choice divides opinion: instead of a plastic dial at the back, tension is adjusted with thin webbing. It's simpler and more durable inside packs or when hauled on walls — dials are notoriously fragile — but it's fiddly to operate, especially with gloves on in cold weather. A headlamp clips on at two front points with a rear bungee, the chinstrap uses standard buckles, and the padded chin protector comes off if you want less bulk. It comes in two genderless sizes (S/M and M/L) in black or green/white, with washable fit pads. The reviewer, who has a small head, found the S/M snug but slightly long front-to-back — fine in summer, but he'd size up for beanie season or if buying just one lid.
The Crack Gloves ($34.95) tackle a perennial climbing nuisance: shredded hands from jamming. Nothing beats a heavily wrapped tape glove for raw coverage and toughness — still the norm at sandpaper classics like Indian Creek's Supercrack — but for days where only a couple of pitches involve hard jamming, gloves you can pull on and off in seconds are a genuine quality-of-life upgrade.
Metolius's version uses a thin, sticky black urethane layer over a sweat-absorbing synthetic base, with an easy-to-adjust Velcro wristband and comfortable finger slots. They run $5–20 cheaper than rival gloves and come in five sizes. The reviewer, a medium across brands, found the fit snug (slightly tight on one pinky) but durable — crucially, the back-of-hand panel didn't rip during fist jams, a common failure point on looser-fitting gloves.
Two gripes, though. The gloves stop at the wrist, so the forearm just past it stays exposed — a real issue on long days of deep, sustained offwidth and stacked-hand routes. And the glued-on urethane pad tends to peel gradually; the reviewer's did, though a bit of superglue back at camp keeps them going.
Bottom line for travelling climbers: both pieces are well-priced, well-built kit worth packing for a trip to American crack country or a multipitch granite day, as long as you accept the webbing adjustment and bring glue for the gloves.
