After having my ears frozen off on Rainier last summer, I decided a windproof beanie might be a good idea for alpine business. Our local gear shop, Backcountry Essentials, was having a "Sample" gear sale, on sample stuffs from various retailers. I wish Rab jackets were cut taller! Anyway, I found a Mountain Hardwear beanie, in Windstopper, that felt super light, packed down to nothing, and fit my oblong head pretty well. The tag simply read "Sample", so I'm not sure of the model, however it looks fairly close to the "Effusion Dome"; The difference being, the Effusion specs on the MH site have it as a proprietary windproof membrane (airshield?) and the one I have sports a Gore Windstopper tag.
Anyhow. Took it home, weighed it. 0.9oz! My thought is, I might use it for backpacking, as that is about as light as you can find for a fleece beanie, and it is probably considerably warmer than a regular micro-fleece beanie (like zpacks) for the same weight. So, it might find itself on regular backpacking duty as well on volcano missions.
Also, I should add it is not cut in the weird, three-panel "mohawk" cut that as my last bulky Windstopper hat.
Out of curiosity, anyone found a lighter beanie, windproof or no?
