This is exemplified by Patagonia’s Active Insulation range, which started with the Nano Air and quickly progressed even further in stripping down insulation and weight. Whatever the reason, the outdoor world is waking up to the reality than often, extra insulation on a garment just means more time for the garment spent crumpled in your pack. Why now, I’m not sure – maybe more people doing fast and light day hikes or peak bagging rather than car camping. Now, there is a trend over the last couple of years for ultra-lite insulation. OutdoorGearLab have been publishing their updated reviews over the last few weeks, and I just caught sight of their Synthetic Insulation meta-review. Why am I going off on this particular rant right now? Great question.
What They Don’t Understand About Synthetics And they desperately need to drop the style points category, which currently has equal weighting to warmth and weight. To approach fairness this category needs separation into at the very least 3 categories: lightweight, versatile, and belay weight. Trying to shove all down jackets into one review and then boiling down complex details into numbers is in this case doing ‘compromise’ jackets and belay jackets a huge disservice.
Patagonia makes an ultralight down jacket (as do Marmot and Arc’teryx for that matter) that is directly comparable, and has been favorably reviewed elsewhere for its low weight, excellent warmth and high denier fabric: see here and here. You’ll also see that the Patagonia Down sweater hoody is being compared to the Ghost Whisperer – another nonsense decision. Click through to the jackets ranked 6-9 and you will find the Arc’teryx Thorium SV – another massive belay jacket on the other end of the spectrum to the Ghost Whisperer. In all other regards they are designed for entirely different purposes, and as a result their relative ‘scores’ (73 to 69) are arbitrary and misleading. The only thing these jackets have in common is their choice of insulation. too heavy and bulky to be a mid-layer.” Well – duh. Look at what is being compared: the Ghost Whisperer, at 8.4oz, the category killing ultralight down jacket is up against the Marmot Guides Hoody which at 24.8oz is billed as “an excellent belay jacket. At first glance this all makes a certain amount of sense. I'm going to be wearing it for urban use so not going into the great outdoors or doing any physical activity with it but I like Arcteryx stuff because they're typically built to handle alot of different elements and though I'll just be in the city I'm a pedestrian and it can get windy, rainy, slushy/icy etc.Take, for example, the recent overview of men’s down jackets: Outdoor Gear Lab Down Jackets.
So the Canadian Arcteryx online store finally restocked the Atom AR and I've been considering it as I have two cold season jackets: Uniqlo ultra light down which is similar to the Cerium more or less and that works for me in single digit temperatures maybe even down to 0 or a touch below and I have my Thorsen which is on the more extreme side and can handle -20 and such.
0 kommentar(er)
