Hi all,
To the best of my knowledge, this has not been discussed yet, so please forgive me if it has. To give some context, I live in France and do most of my climbing/mountaineering in Europe where the climate is usually not as wet as in the UK. So far I've been using my harshell as my outer layer, but i've come to the conclusion that it's actually unnecessary to have a waterproof 99% of the time. Even when ice climbing, I'll be more comfortable wearing something more breathable. I'm thus looking for something with good stretch for movement, a relatively slim cut (i'm 1,83m for 65 kg...), over-helmet hood, some decent wind resistance, and a bit (but not too much) of insulation. My layering system usually goes like this :
- Merino base layer
- Rab alpha freak pull on (alpha direct fleece-type midlayer)
- Outer layer (the one I'm trying to replace)
- Synthetic insulation puffy (ME Citadel or Fitzroy) for belays and stationnary periods.
So far i'm hesitating between the Mountain Equipment Kinesis and the Alpkit Resolute Jacket. What is your opinion on each one of these (I have already read the UKC review about them)? Have you tried one or own one?
Thank you very much for your help, it's much appreciated.
PS : Apologies if some mistakes plague my writting, i'm definitely not a native speaker/writter.