Best waterproof jacket for the money
- This topic has 27 replies, 21 voices, and was last updated Sep 3, 2012 at 4:44 pm by
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I find it ironic that Patagonia doesn’t give a pro deal to a professional Patagonian fishing guide.
Yeah, the guide program is a bit tight for my tastes, but overall I have to say that I have a lot of respect for the way Patagonia runs their manufacturing and for their general business practices and above and beyond commitment to conservation.
Grant-
What pants?
A good site to keep an eye on for a deal is geartrade.com. I have bought and sold through them with no problems. Steepandcheap is another one to watch.
Tim — These are the pants:
The Upland Briar Shirt is what I used all season on top.
How’s the grouse/woodcock forecast looking up there?
A hunting guide in Canada said to me one rainy morning while we were suiting up. “Nice Goretex jacket” he said while he pulled out an old beat up Grunden Jacket. I asked why he wore such a heavy coat? He replied Goretex is nice but rubber is dry. I took his advice and bought a set of Grunden’s 10 years ago. Here in New England I wouldn’t have anything else.
I have an LL Bean Pac lite Gor-tex jacket for stuffing in the pack on a nice day and one of their Pro Gor-tex jackets for the cold.
Both are nice, but the Pac-lite is exceptional for the money IMHO.
Also, FWIW, both now come in a tall sizes..Negatives –
The pockets on the Pac-Lite are too low and the pockets on the stretch to many.www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
Perhaps I’m stating the obvious, but the choice in rain jackets, are highly influenced by intended use. Fit and function are obviously important, but arguably breathability is as well unless you are producing minimal body vapor (i.e. your are nearly sedentary).
For the ‘itinerant angler’, keeping rain out is only half of solution to staying dry, the other is transferring trapped body vapor to the outside of the jacket. Most of my fishing is located in remote backcountry wilderness, that requires substantial exertion to reach. Thus, I found this paper quite interesting to compare the breathability of some of the contemporary fabrics on the market or soon to reach the market:
http://www.shelby.fi/tips/breathability.pdf
Over the next year or so we should see some progress in how breathable fabrics are. For now, I’ve had great success with jackets that use an eVent membrane. Though, breathable fabrics help, nothing works better than having physical options to vent (pit zips, etc)
BackpackingLight did a nice 3 part series on this topic:
http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/orwm_2011_wrapup_waterproof-breathable_technologies.htmlSome existing / upcoming fabrics to watch:
eVent
DryQ Active
Breeze Dry-Tec
Omni-Dry
Gore-Tex Pro Shell
Gore-Tex Active Shell
Polartec NeoShell
Polartec PowerShield Pro
Marmot MemBrain
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