Although, without any height adjustment for the shoulder straps, the waist belt was mostly useless for our shorter torso testers. The Drop Zone also has a webbing waist belt that was effective in distributing heavy loads from the shoulders to the hips. The Black Diamond Drop Zone has padded and contoured shoulder straps that are comfortable for hiking to your favorite backcountry bouldering areas. Unlike the Organic or Asana pads we tested, the Drop zone rounded out their corners leaving open spots when the pads were all laid out.
DROPZONE 4 REVIEW FULL
The soft foam made it easy to stuff a full backpack inside the pad and have it form fit around the pack. Testers liked the durable metal buckle for the closure but questioned the durability of the attachment points. However, they found the zippered pocket on the flap was poorly placed right at a bend on the flap making it challenging to use it for anything other than keys. The quick closure mesh flap was simple and intuitive to ensure that smaller items like water bottles and climbing shoes would stay inside the pad. The testers liked the continuous foam sheet of the “taco” fold design because it eliminated the dead space in the center found on a lot of hinged pads. Over time, the foam seemed to “break in” making it easier to fold and stuff the pad. Although they liked the hinge design for its continuous foam sheet, they initially found the hinge to be cumbersome to fold. Our testers found the Black Diamond Drop Zone to be moderately functional.
Otherwise, testers found no durability issues with the shell construction. Thus the Drop Zone got lower marks for this oversight from some of our testers. The major downfall of using this design feature is that there is nothing to protect the shoulder straps or waist belt from these wet or muddy conditions. The rubberized polyurethane coating was also waterproof and “mud-proof” to keep climbers from landing in the wet spring conditions of the Rocky Mountains.
Testers liked it for its non-slip characteristics that kept it in place better on sloped surfaces than other pads. However, where Black Diamond differentiates itself from its competitors is in the addition of a “rubberized” polyurethane coating on the back side, somewhat similar to the Kinetik pad we tested. This seems to be standard for most of its competitors as well. The Drop Zone pad uses a 1000 denier nylon for its shell. In terms of foam quality and experience, the Black Diamond Drop Zone was our tester’s least favorite pad. However, for longer falls averaging over 6 feet, the Drop Zone needed to be stacked with another pad in order to avoid sharp rocks on uneven landings. The Drop Zone also did well protecting obscure landings that were tight in scree fields or had slopes. For lounging around or for shorter falls, the Drop Zone pad seemed appropriate for average use and the testers appreciated the soft foam. Testers noted that both the polyethylene and polyurethane foam could be more firm in order to be better suited for protecting the climber from falls on uneven terrain. It is not only the thinnest pad we tested at 3.5 inches, but it also seemed to be the softest foam and consequently bottomed out most frequently. Compared to all the other pads tested, we found that the Drop Zone’s foam combination performed below average for landing variability. Black Diamond uses a combination of dense 1-inch polyethylene foam and 2.5 inches of softer high compression polyurethane foam.
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