A down or insulated jacket is a great choice whether at your local boulder on a winter's day or on that alpine bivvy. Down insulation gives you the best warm to weight ratio and smallest pack size, the down side used to be that if it got wet it would loose its insulation properties. However today the developments in Down insulation have gone from strength to strength with brands like Berghaus and Rab introducing their Hydrophobic Down which absorbs less water and dry more quickly. With this in mind the Rab Neutrino Endurance Jacket or Mountain Equipment Lumin Jacket would be good choices. Synthetic insulation like Primaloft and Coreloft have fantastic insulation properties and keep you warm when wet but they are a little heavier than down and don't pack down as small. The Arcteryx Atom LT Hoody and Rab Xenon X Hoodie are good examples but if you need any advice give one of our experts a call or pop into our Newcastle store.
