After reading this article, I had high expectations of the Fitz Roy. And having now taken delivery of one, it has met or exceeded my expectations is almost all ways – which makes the exception even more surprising.
The exception is the hood. And while they got the tough parts right (it’s well baffled and they didn’t skimp on fill, resulting in a lot of loft everywhere), they missed the easy one – the face opening is simply too large. It does come down nice and low over my forehead (an area that I’ve found loses a lot of heat) without restricting my vision. But it does not come up over my mouth, no matter how I adjust it. Indeed, unless I lean my head down, it barely reaches my chin.
Furthermore, the opening is too wide, leaving the side of the face more exposed than necessary. And the more you tighten the hood (necessary to bring it down low over the forehead), the wider it gets. This is the result of the strange single adjustment mechanism. (There is just one draw cord at the back of the hood.) Though if you pull the sides of the hood forward after tightening it, it helps a bit.
Compared to my only other big, warm down parka, an ancient Marmot Warm II, it leaves about twice as much of my face uncovered. I am surprised by this weakness, because I would expect it’s something Patagonia would prioritize avoiding. For leaving half the face uncovered must surely lose a lot more heat than, for instance, a poorly designed shoulder baffle, or zipper baffle, etc. We all know a huge amount of heat is lost by an uninsulated head. I don’t know how much is lost by the part that does the thinking, which this hood covers, versus the part that does the talking, breathing, and seeing, which this hood doesn’t. Maybe most. But I do know that when cold sets in, just battening down the hatches over my face when wearing a Gore-Tax parka with a very good hood makes a big difference. And when it’s cold and windy, I want my face covered as much as it can be.
I guess the reason it’s not so good is that they didn’t want the collar to be too high when not wearing the hood. I would have hoped that they would have simply gone with a higher collar anyway, as I now see the Grade VII has.
But there is an even better solution. Something that, unfortunately, has almost disappeared from technical clothing: I’ll call it a wrap-around hood. In other words, a hood with a face closure that is separate from the neck closure. That’s how my Marmot jacket works – the big bottom hood flap on the wearer’s left closes with Velcro over the flap on the right. This makes it easy to adjust the extent to which it closes, and whether the hood accommodates a helmet or fits tightly on a head, even with mitts on. More importantly, it facilitates an opening that is wide enough for your eyes without being too long and not covering your mouth or forehead. It also seems to help with making the hood turn with the head (which the Fitz Roy’s hood doesn’t). And the neck closure being separate means it can be tighter.
Of course, such a hood isn’t ultralight. Except that actually, it is. Because nothing is heavier than a jacket that requires an additional piece of gear to keep warm. Indeed, I’ve now twice seen promotional materials for down jackets showing wearers also wearing a separate neck/face thingy to cover what the jackets don’t. If everything we wear other than base layers should have a good warmth to weight ratio and allow easy adaptability to conditions, is there anything worse than a neck gator/thingy?
The Fitz Roy is not alone in such weaknesses. I’ve recently tried a lot of lighter down jackets and all but one had hoods that were even worse. The exception was the Montane Anti-Freeze, which was quite acceptable. Maybe as good as my Marmot down jacket – I can’t clearly recall. Which does show that a wrap-around hood is not 100% essential. On the other hand though, while my Marmot down jacket has a good hood, it is hardly best in class (it also doesn’t turn with the wearer’s head). Neither it nor the Montane hood are anywhere near as good as the wrap-around hood on my even more ancient Marmot Powder Jacket (a Gore-Tex parka). I’ve wanted to replace it with a newer Gore-Tex or similar jacket for skiing for decades now, but I simply can’t find one with a hood that is nearly as good.)
Other reviews I’ve read also suggest that the Montane Frost Line’s hood may be good at both covering most of the face (it certainly looked that way in a photo) and turning with the user’s head.
Back to the Fitz Roy. I am also a bit concerned about how helmet compatible the hood is. I haven’t had a chance to try it, but the hood does not look huge enough to fit a big helmet, like a modern ski helmet (and I can imagine that having just a single adjustment may have necessitated limiting the size). As noted, a wrap around hood also helps with this. With a bit helmet, you wrap it a little. With a bare head, you wrap it a lot.
One neat feature is the baffle at the back of the neck to seal the cold out. I haven’t tested this in a cold wind yet (kind of hard, this time of year), but it feels like it should work. (This does solve one of the problems with the neck closure and the face closure being the same – a wide neck oppening.) However, it also feels like it comes with a disadvantage – when you unzip and want to vent heat, your back won’t vent as much.
Finally, I don’t much like the position of the inside pockets. Seems to me that if a jacket has hand warmer pockets, then if you want to add more pockets, you should put them at the chest level, not right behind the hand warmer pockets at belly level. If you put them there, as Patagonia has done, you have pockets on top of pockets. So if you need to put things in your pockets (which is why you have them after all), you get swollen lumps of stuff over and around your belly, which is neither comfortable nor attractive. And it’s worse still if you put your hands in your hand warmer pockets only to clod into whatever lumps lie below.
So I’ll return it then? Well … other than the hood and the interior pocket position, I really, really like the Fitz Roy. I like the fit. I like the fabric. I love the loft, and the baffles do a great job of avoiding cold spots. It compresses amazingly. And looks great too. I would prefer something designed for thinner people. (For which reason I went a size down, and I think it was the right choice, though I do wish the arms were one or two centimeters longer.) I can live with the pockets, so the only real reason to return it would be the hood.
The logical alternative for me is the Frost Line. I had planned to buy one before reading here that it is so much shorter and less warm. But if I don’t need to go a size down (TBD), will I really lose more heat from my butt with the Frost Line than from my face with the Fitz Roy? If not, then while it does have less down, I can probably live with that, and it has the advantages of being lighter, having sturdier fabric, better interior pockets (probably), and adjustable cuffs. And if the hood does cover my mouth, I may appreciate the micro-fleece I understand the Frost Line has there.
But I really like the Fitz Roy … .
P.S. I can answer a question from one of my recent posts. The Fitz Roy’s arms have box baffles, not sewn through construction. I’m sure about that in the upper arms. I didn’t inspect the lower arms as closely, but they don’t feel different. Furthermore, contrary to what I had read elsewhere, it does not seem that the Fitz Roy has as much loft in the arms as in the chest, which is good.
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