Help with clothing system

Looks reasonable… though if it was me, I would lose the Arcteryx phase SV top and bottom and think twice about if I needed the Melanzana grid hoodie. I would think your light base + windshirt would be enough when moving, and you layer over those with the montbell when stopped if needed.

–mark

+1 on the Arcteryx phase SV top. The bottoms are more a question of how you handle cold and if you use them to extend your sleep system. Nice for cold /wet weather and shoulder seasons. I like long johns under rain pants rather than trying to wear regular hiking pants under, especially if you are going to wear them all day.

My own layering system is close to the same, but I use a Power Stretch hoodie and synthetic puffy vs down.

Other warm-ish weather schemes:

Long sleeve base layer
Mid-layer vest
Long sleeve puffy
Windshirt
Rain shell

-or-

Long sleeve base layer
Mid-layer hoodie
Puffy vest
Windshirt
Rain shell

I like the latter combo best. The vests combo well with any of the other long sleeves and your core is toasty. I like mid-layer stuff with a windshirt or rain shell, or just with base layer to take a little chill off. Great for sleep too. A mid-layer fleecy vest is a great summer day-hike CYA extra layer.

Great input, thanks guys. So it seems I should not be cold so that's a relief. Hrm… Maybe I could lose the Melanzana and be ok… Now ya got me thinkin.

I'd love to ditch the middle layers entirely and go all puffy, but the last time I did that my MB thermawrap parka turned into a soppy cold mess during a heavy rain and it made me sad.

Good point about the vest. Maybe I'll pick up one of those Blackrock ones in the future.

Any reason why you were wearing your thermawrap parka as an outer layer? It should have either been under your rain jacket (when standing around), or it should have been in your pack (when moving).

So this is the weird part. The thermawrap parka was under a shell, and I only wore it in camp. I'm guessing my shell failed to some degree, and then my body sweat drenched it the rest of the way? I probably squeezed a 1/2 a liter out of it the next morning.
It was in point reyes in December a few years ago, so the coastal fog and humidity on top of the rain probably didn't help.

For the record though it did dry very fast the next day and the loft returned. I wore it the following night and it was great.