Ragged Mountain Equipment of Intervale New Hampshire, make outdoor clothing basics using well known materials. I decided to give their Stretch Grid Hoody a try.
This fleece, at 8.5 ounces (L) with a dense grid pattern is nice. It’s got way more spandex (21%) than I think a garment should have, so beware. I actually thought it was a typo on the label, and since then I have not been able to find other Polartec Power Stretch with such high spandex content. BPL smarties have shunned such high spandex content. In spite of this, I’m going to give it a shot on trips based on the nice half zip, good backside drop, a baselayer but not uber tight fit, and lightness but dense grid (not much gap between the grid blocks) pattern.
I’ll compare it to several other popular fleeces that I have either owned or handled.
- Melanzana Micro Grid Hoody -The Melanzana has a dense grid pattern (not much gap at all between grid blocks) as well, but the RM is 8.5oz and the Melanzana ~12oz. The Melanzana material is 10-20% thicker iirc. The RM is a baselayer fit with ninja hood, the Melanzana is a looser fit all around. The RM half zip is a nice feature over the Melanzana fixed hood imo. I really wish Melanzana would make a half zip hood of this material.
- Patagonia R1 Dense grid pattern and quite thick. The weight penalty is ~13oz. In my opinion the R1 is too thick for most of MY hiking applications and heavy. Especially when you can carry a 6.25 oz Patagonia Thermal Weight/Haglofs LIM and a 6.25oz Borah Down Jacket for 12.5oz. That’s two jackets for the weight of one R1.
- Patagonia Thermal/Haglofs LIM – The Haglofs is 6.25oz and has wide gaps between the grid blocks, but has a “hardface” that has minimal wind resistance, very minimal. This wide spacing of the grid blocks means it can easily loose it’s thermal abilities once the wind heads past 10mph. 10 mph is about when we all start to notice wind on our bare skin. Under a shell is where these fleeces start to look good.
- MEC T3 – About 8.25oz. This piece has thick and large grid blocks but there’s larger amounts of spacing between them just like above, same “hardface” as above. The fit will be baselayer style. This is another good half zip choice.
- Patagonia Merino Air – Go watch Patagonia’s video on this material. It’s awesome, I don’t know why I didn’t buy this when I had the chance. It’s 50/50 Wool/Poly which I like over a broad range and because it doesn’t stink to high hell. It’s very airy so a shell is a must.
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