![]() A few days ago, I spent a few hours out on a day where our rainfall hit 5.8 inches for the day. I wore the jacket on a hike while a front moved through with 40-50 mile per hour winds, saw temperatures from the high 20s to the low 60s, and hiked in steady snow, hail, misty rain, and a few truly monsoon-like days. Because the Mid-Atlantic featured some of the worst late winter/early spring weather we have seen in years, I had opportunities to wear this jacket in abnormally lousy weather. Most of those walks were with a daypack or backpack on. I used the Alpine Houdini for a couple of months. Those jackets don't weigh 6 ounces, though, and they cost a lot more than this. I have used a number of higher-end jackets that have a hood with better overall design and better ability to make adjustments. Wearing a ballcap would take care of that.īy contrast, lateral visibility is great. However, The limited adjustability and design of the brim forced me to pull the elastic pretty tight, because otherwise, the brim tended to block my view a little bit from the top. The stiffened brim does a very good job keeping rain off yoru face. It fit over doubled winter hats and would probably handle a helmet if it's low profile. It provides full coverage and has plenty of room. The limited elastic pulls on the hem and hood are fine and allow you to batten down the hatches if the wind and rain are flying.Ī few words about the hood. The sleeves are just a little longer than normal, and the hem falls around mid-upper thigh for me, which is a few inches longer than the regular Houdini. Some things about the fit account for the "alpine" label. (For comparison's sake, I wear a size 46 regular men's jacket and usually fit in size XL, so I consider this to be true to size). Still, it has a little more room for layering than the regular Houdini. I felt confined trying to layer it over a 300 weight polar fleece jacket, though.Īt the same time, there isn't much spare fabric here, and I would characterize the fit as quasi-athletic. It has a relatively lean fit on the torso, with enough room to accommodate a thick base layer or a medium insulating layer. It's only on one side, which functioned perfectly well. These two photos show the location and closer details for the hem adjustment. If you want to hang the jacket to dry it out, it has a nice unsnap-able loop on the inside. The hardwear at the center is the only adjustment for the hood. This shows the small pocket inside the jacket, in the chest area. Unsurprisingly for a jacket that claims to be waterproof and breathable, the nylon has little if any stretchiness to it, it is very light but basically a hard shell. The jacket is fully seam-taped on the inside. The wrists are elastic but not adjustable. The hem also has an elastic, adjustable via a single spring toggle on one side. I will address the hood in more detail below, because it has some slight limitations to be aware of. The hood has an elastic across the back and a single spring toggle, which means less adjustability than some options, but also less weight. The jacket has no other way to ventilate - no armpit zips, for example. The main zipper has a very small piece of nylon string as the 'pull' and is backed by a rain/draft flap. The full-zip front is a typical coil zipper, light but not ridiculously so, and it zipped and unzipped easily - not a "sticky" zipper. Note the Houdini has a nylon loop, suitable for latching it to your pack with a carabiner if needed. To highlight the point that this isn't much jacket to carry around, I compared it to a regular (blue) Patagonia Houdini, also stuffed into its own pocket, and a Patagonia Capilene liner glove. The jacket retails for $199, which is fairly expensive for something so light. In the photo below, I stuffed the jacket into the pocket and held it up against a windblock fleece glove. The pocket can carry small stuff, like a few energy bars, and it can be turned inside out and stuffed with the jacket. It has one very small interior pocket, adjacent to the zipper on the chest. That is a little heavier than the regular Houdini, which is 4 ounces in the same size. My size XL in "folios green" weighed in at 6.4 ounces on a digital hand scale.
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