Best light vest?

My first choice would be the Patagonia Micropuff, a synthetic fill vest that should meet your qualifications and won't be much affected by moisture. If moisture isn't a concern you could go with down, in which case I'd look at the Western Mountaineering Flash or Flight vests.

The older version of the Patagonia micropuff vest weighs in right around 6oz, is very warm, and packs really small. See if you can find it on ebay; the new version has a full zip and weighs a whopping 9oz, a stupid 50% more. I got an old one used on these forums, and its absolutely great. Super warm, simple, light, packable. Perfect.

BMW will be rolling out a 6oz vest in April 2007 according to the product page, but that may be too late for you.

I imagine that the Montbell thermawrap vest would work well for you. Closer to 5oz than 6, although I think that’s at the sacrifice of loft, which is a bit lower than the top two options.

Patagonia has the 6oz. micro-puff vest on Web Special for $45, but there are only XS, S, and XXL left. OR… I've been trying to sell my size L micro-puff here for a while. New lower price is $40 shipped.

Should I be more subtle, or is it better to be blatantly obvious?

-Eric

EDIT: Sorry, the vest sold almost immediately after I posted this.

Eric I'll buy it.

roger_alsborg@hotmail.com

I'd go with the montbell thermawrap vest.

Define "warm" — how low will the temperatures be overnight? I have the Montbell UL down pullover vest, which is some insanely light weight, less than 5 oz. No zip, just a couple of snaps at the neck. Under a shell it's surprisingly warm, but I wouldn't want to rely on it to keep me truly warm below maybe 35-40F. If that. The Montbell synthetic Thermawrap vest appears to have similar loft, so I'd expect similar performance.

Cheers, looks like its between the Montbell and Patagonia suggestions and probably the latter because its sold over here in England.

re define warm…its hard to say what the temperature will be. The event is in the Lake District at the end of June son in theory it shouldn't be below 3-4c at night but it could be windy and it could be wet.