I just noticed this 'Frost Smoke Parka' on Montbell's website today. I'm not sure how long it's been there, but it's got a 'new' icon so it must be fairly new.
The Frost Smoke is only available as a 'parka' and not a 'jacket' – in other words it's only available with a hood. This parka slots in between the UL Down Inner (2.5oz of down, 9oz total) and Alpine Light Parka (4.3oz down, 15.7oz total). The Frost Smoke has 3.5oz of 800 down and tips the scales at 12.5oz. It uses 15D fabrics like the UL Down Inner, but it has some reinforced 40D areas in high wear areas. Overall, it sounds like a great 3 season hiking piece as I find the UL Down Inner to bit out-gunned in spring/fall and the Alpine Light to be a bit overkill usually. As always with Montbell, it's priced great at $199.
You could argue this jacket is really close to the UL Tec Down Jacket, but I never liked the UL Tec because it's pretty much just a UL Down Inner with heavier fabrics and hardly more down (2.9oz vs. 2.5oz). The new Frost Smoke ups the down to 3.5oz, adds the longer cut and doesn't waste as much weight with heavy fabrics so it's a much better piece IMO.
One of the best parts of this new parka is the longer cut. Montbell seems to finally be listening because almost of their stuff is cut too short in the torso for the average person. The Frost Smoke is 29.1" long at the back, whereas the UL Down Inner (27.6") and Alpine Light (26.8") are quite a bit shorter. I had to size up with my Alpine Light Parka just because I didn't want it to fit so short and I"m a fairly normal build at 5'11, 170 lbs.
Montbell also has some other 'new' stuff on their site which I think is new, but it's hard to be sure since any time they update anything or just change the colors they call it 'new'. So seemingly new (or not offered recently anyways) is a vest and t-shirt version of their UL Down Inner. The vest is offered in mens and womens, while the tee is just mens.
They also seem to have some new 'Thermawrap' stuff going on, but I'm not too sure what is new since I don't really follow Montbell's synthetic stuff. The website (montbell.us) is showing 'new' beside a Thermawrap Pro, Thermawrap JK and Thermawrap Guide.
Frost Smoke Parka:
