GoLite Malpais Trinity 3-Layer Liteshell Jacket Review

[Addie Bedford]

Companion forum thread to:

GoLite Malpais Trinity 3-Layer Liteshell Jacket Review

[sean neves]

I just brought this jacket through five days and forty miles in Cedar Mesa (Grand Gulch, Collins to Bullet) and saw everything from intense heat, light rain, freezing temps, driving sand blizzards and some light snow and this review nailed every single point that I observed. Puzzling (read: useless with a pack on) pocket placement, tight chest fit, loose belly fit, and the worst zipper I have ever encountered in my 25 years of walking around the hills. I am pretty sure that I have permanently damaged the zipper from forcing it in the early uses. The key is to get it to "set" and then force it. Force it before it sets and you will hurt the coat. No Bueno.

I love the concept, the light weight, breath-ability and 3-layer design, but sadly it's going back to its maker today.

[Roger Caffin]

> significantly tighter around the chest and shoulders than around the belly and lower back
Can one jump to the conclusion that the jacket is designed for the average quite-obese yuppie maybe?

OK, harsh. But still … it fits.

Cheers

[Paul Hatfield]

Posting my comments from another thread:

I love GoLite backpacks, but the GoLite Malpais Trinity does not get a thumbs up. It has a
absolutely horrible zipper
too much fabric in the gut
hood with poor coverage

The GoLite Tumalo that I tried had a horrible zipper too (just about impossible to get started).

[B. F.]

I find it disturbing that on a site about lightweight backpacking, I can find no weight on a product review. I scanned the text and searched for "oz", "Ounce", "Weight", "gram" – there is no weight. Waste of time.

[CW]

This may or may not make you happy, but the weight was published in the SOTMR.

[B. F.]

Thanks. An idea would be to begin a review with the product weight and a comparisson to two similiar alternatives, always one lighter and one heavier. Also, this way you could sometimes cross-link product reviews. Example:

GoLite Malpais – 7.2 oz / 204 gram
Lighter*: Montane Litespeed H20 (5.6 / 159)
Heavier*1: Montane Spektr (7.7 / 218)

* : (chose a similiar featured alternative here)
*1: (chose a more featured, slightly different alternative here)

Just for consideration. Good review apart from this.

[Addie Bedford]

B.F.: Agreed. Weight should have been listed, and it completely slipped my notice that it was not! Thanks for pointing it out.
Addie

[Anonymous]

I own one in a size medium and it is heavier than the weight listed by BPL. I put the jacket on my digital scale and the weight of the jacket in size medium is 224 gram/7.9oz
I don't know why my jacket is heavier…

[Gary Dunckel]

My XL Malpais weighs exactly 8.0 ounces. And I hate the zipper too…

[Dustin Short]

Roger, stop sticking up for the pudgy yuppies! They have enough money to pay for well fitting clothes, yet starving college students like myself have to spend big bucks on Euro styled brands to get decently cut clothing!

Rene, each scale is different. Some aren't that accurate or reliable (the former meaning reading represents actual weight and latter meaning weighing the same item over and over gives you the same reading with little/no variation).

While I think my scale is pretty decent, I really just use it as a relative guide to compare two items, rather than an absolute measure.

So unless there's something incredibly wrong with your jacket (ie much larger than labeled size or different fabric used) more than likely the issue is with your scale than the jacket.

[Mark Montag]

Brad, nicely presented and well thought out review. Thanks for your time in putting this together.

As owner of one of these jackets, purchased 2011, just a few other comments. My men's medium weights in at 7.6 oz – at 5'-8", 140lbs, w/ athletic build the medium fits well, no restrictions for full movement, I like the softer, non crinkle fabric.

The jacket does indeed seem to be fuller towards the bottom, I use the jacket for backpacking only, it's in my pack most of the time waiting for the weather to change, I'm happy it's less than 8oz. When I do have it on, I never put my pack waistbelt over the bottom of my jacket(s), (or shirt for that matter) – instead pull the jacket above the belt. With the Malpais two-way zipper, I can unzip and open the bottom to aid in breathing. I'm thinking that little bit of lower looseness helps that function. As Will points out in one of his many fine articles – a waterproof/breathable jacket needs to be open in the front to truly breathe, I agree. The controls on the hood could be tighter, I typically use hoods with a mesh brim cap (ballcap) underneath the hood. The Malpais hood pull down nice & tight to the brim. A brim cap & hood is the only way to go in precipitating weather. jmo

As for the sticky zipper – mine had that at first, I thought mine was the only one that did that until I read it in a few BPL articles. The first thing I did was to rub paraffin (hard dry wax) on the zip coupler & zipper start – smooth operation, still works great after 8 months or so. YES – I know – a new jacket shouldn't need that, but it's a 30 second fix for those that have or would like to purchase the jacket.

Lastly, the outdoor clothing industry have their suggested retail price, GoLite however is almost always on sale somewhere at a substantial lower price & usually before the season is over.

[andrew morgan]

Not a single mention of how this jacket fares in the rain???? Am I missing something?

Review fail.

[Jim Milstein]

I got one of these in December 2012. The fit of mine is overall slender, which is ok, since I am too. There is no accommodation for a paunch, as described in the review. I normally buy men's medium, and this is the right size for me in this jacket too. The slender fit does not allow much extra clothing under it, like a puffy jacket. But that seems reasonable given what I think is its purpose.

Like everyone else's, mine has a hard-to-start zipper. A tiny, tiny smear of white silicone grease on each of the two zipper lugs at the bottom has helped a lot. An earlier commenter was not troubled by the pocket placement, since he unzips the bottom and keeps the jacket outside his pack's waste belt. I normally do too with all my jackets.

I have not field tested it yet, since it is not really the right shell for winter in the Rockies.

[Green Thumb]

I walked 25 miles up near the Blue Ridge Parkway in NC in a constant rain. I was wearing the Malpais Jacket with the Currant Mtn. pants. I stayed dry and they never came close to wetting out. Not bad considering I picked the set up for what the jacket costs right now. I've also worn the jacket around town lately with the wet weather and have finally gotten the zipper to loosen up a bit. Definitely worth it as an uber lightweight rain jacket.

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