Outdoor Research Floodlight Jacket
Have you ever just wanted to head up to the Blueys with your rope, rack, lunch and one jacket? While this was possible though the late 90's and early 00's when El Niño was in effect and the Sydney desalination plant was in overdrive trying to give us all a shower, it seems in the last few years the waterproof shell permanently stays in the pack or at least the boot of the car just in case, and drying your down jacket out is common practice.
The Outdoor Research Floodlight Jacket in Pewter/Lemongrass
Down jackets are light and warm, but they have an Achilles heel. Down is useless when it is wet. There are two ways that you can deal with this problem - one solution is on hte user end: keeping it in a dry bag, or wearing a shell over the top. And the other is from a design aspect. Dry treating the down, using waterproof/resistant shells and so forth. Dry treating was a big advancement but doesn't solve the problem completely, and putting a 100% waterproof shell over the top is heavy and bulky. Until now...
Outdoor Research has introduced the Floodlight Down Jacket. A fully waterproof, fully windproof down jacket coming in at 600 g for size large. They have used untreated high lofting 800+ goose down and covered it in a fully tape seamed Pertex Sheild+ shell. Perfect as a Blue Mountains, Arapiles or Grampians cragging puffy, an alpine belay jacket, backcountry skiing, hiking, backpacking, or any situation where cold, damp, windy conditions could be expected. The Pertex Sheild+ fabric is also tougher than what you are probably used to on down jackets so no tip-toeing around when you're wearing it. And if it starts to rain - who cares!
Part time Mountain Equipment sales assistant, part time cat walk strutter - Kern shows just how good the floodlight jacket can look