Outdoor Apparel Reviews

Featured Friends Eos Down Jacket.

Review: Feathered Friends Eos Down Jacket

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Down Jacket
Feathered Friends Eos Down Jacket
$409, 11 oz./312g (men’s medium)
Sizes: men’s XS-XXL, women’s XS-XL
featheredfriends.com

When you have something that works, the worst thing you can do is change it much. Feathered Friends stuck with a winning formula when updating its popular Eos Down Jacket, making just two minor improvements. Testing the updated Eos on adventures ranging from a windy and chilly June camping and climbing trip in Idaho’s City of Rocks National Reserve to nine days backpacking through the High Sierra in August, I found it just as warm and comfortable as I have found the previous iteration of this poofy puffy in the backcountry of Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, Glacier National Park, and countless other wild places.

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The Black Diamond Treeline Rain Shell.

Review: Black Diamond Treeline Rain Shell

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Rain Jacket
Black Diamond Treeline Rain Shell
$150, 10 oz./283.5g (men’s medium)
Sizes: men’s XS-XXL, women’s XS-XL
backcountry.com

High-performance rain jackets for the backcountry cost real money. Cheap rain shells often compromise on quality. Through a rainy, three-day, August backpacking trip in the Wind River Range, including hiking nine miles in wind-driven rain and temps in the 40s Fahrenheit on our last day, this lightweight jacket kept my 20-year-old son dry. If you want a rain shell that delivers good quality at a price that leaves you gas money to reach the trailhead, the Treeline warrants a close look.

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The Black Diamond Approach Down Hoody.

Review: Black Diamond Approach Down Hoody

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Water-Resistant Down Jacket
Black Diamond Approach Down Hoody
$380, 10 oz./284g (men’s medium)
Sizes: men’s S-XL, women’s XS-XL
blackdiamondequipment.com

Sometimes it’s hard to anticipate how much warmth you’ll need from your insulation, especially on a multi-day backcountry trip—and you may be tempted to go with an ultralight puffy jacket and hope for the best. If your choice is BD’s Approach Down Hoody, you’ll achieve the ultralight objective with little risk of feeling under-dressed. Wearing it on cool, very windy evenings and mornings down to the 40s Fahrenheit on a six-day backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon in early April and in similar temps on a five-day, late-summer hike in the Wind River Range, I stayed both perfectly warm and happy that I’d avoided adding more ballast to a pack already encumbered with substantial food and water weight.

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The Outdoor Research Helium Wind Hoody.

Review: Outdoor Research Helium Wind Hoodie

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Ultralight Wind Shell
Outdoor Research Helium Wind Hoodie
$129, 5 oz./141.7g (men’s medium)
Sizes: men’s XS-XXL, women’s XS-XL
backcountry.com

If, besides very low weight, versatility counts for everything in an ultralight wind shell, the variety of places, weather, and seasons I’ve worn OR’s wafer-thin Helium Wind Hoodie speaks volumes about its value. From hiking up and sometimes running down crazy-steep trails in fall and the earliest days of spring in Utah’s Wasatch, Canada’s Banff National Park, New Hampshire’s White Mountains, and Idaho’s Boise Foothills, to the breezy heights of Hawaii’s high point, 13,803-foot Mauna Kea, and the windblown depths of the Grand Canyon, this shell fended off cool wind while taking up no more space in my daypack than my long-sleeve jersey.

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Black Diamond Dawn Patrol Hybrid Pants.

Review: Black Diamond Dawn Patrol Hybrid Pants

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Ski Touring Pants
Black Diamond Dawn Patrol Hybrid Pants
$325, 19.5 oz./553g (men’s small)
Sizes: men’s S-XL, women’s XS-XL
blackdiamondequipment.com

We all know the challenge of finding pants that keep you dry, warm, and comfortable when ski touring or riding in the backcountry: You need them to release heat and moisture when you sweat hard going uphill and repel snow and wind when moving through exposed terrain in stormy weather or charging hard downhill. On days of ski touring in Utah’s Wasatch Range that displayed all of winter’s multiple personalities—from temperatures in the teens with dumping snow and the wind blowing hard to warm March sunshine with the temps in the 20s, BD’s Dawn Patrol Hybrid Pants demonstrated why they’ve remained enduringly popular among backcountry users.

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