Patagonia Down Sweater Jacket: $229
The Good: The perfect puffy for cooler-season adventures.
The Bad: Death is unavoidable if you wear this in the summer. Gone. Melted. Goodbye. Integrated sleeve gloves would be a nice upgrade.
The Activist: All feathers in this jacket are Patagonia’s 100% Traceable Down.
Dependable summer days are still not yet upon us, and in some places they never will be. Stay warm with this Patagonia puffy when those cold fronts roll in, or when a storm decides to form when you’re on the side of a mountain. Whatever the situation, this Down Sweater Jacket is the perfect layer to have on any trip.
Tested in the winter/spring months on Mount Shasta in northern California, this piece worked amazing as a layer to pull on after a 2-hour skin up to 10k ft. It doesn’t matter how warm it was going up, if you’re drenched in sweat and the winds are howling at elevation, it’s no longer warm. The sweater jacket held up strong against wind, a bit of precip (thanks to the DWR finish), and colder temps. This jacket also traveled on several sketchy weather hikes, with a well-formed yet loose fit it’s easy to pull on over any base layer if the weather goes bad. Better yet, the DWR finish means you don’t have to be paranoid of your down jacket melting when it catches a bit of rain.
I love backpacking, but I really hate waking up and having to cook breakfast in the cold. While fleece is great as a mid layer, it’s just not warm enough when you wake up to frost on the ground and frozen-over lakes. This piece of gear is such a quick fix to all that. The 800-fill down in the sweater jacket has no trouble keeping warm in colder temps. It’s too bad it doesn’t have built in gloves in the sleeves (hint* hint*, Patagonia). Because this jacket is stuffed with down, it’s not only light, but highly packable. In fact, it self-stuffs into the chest pocket and can clip on to your gear. Perfect for any backpacking adventure.
And of course, with a Patagonia product there is a major point of ethics to the piece. The 800-fill down in this jacket is all 100% Traceable Down, meaning you can trace every feather back to a bird that was never force fed or live plucked. The shell is even 100% recycled polyester. A seriously warm, packable jacket, weighing only 11.3oz, makes this piece worthy of the outdoor adventurer who likes to keep their gear to the bare essentials. With the Patagonia Down Sweater Jacket, you can be a warm and responsible outdoor enthusiast – that’s a double win right there.
