Every weather app leads with the temperature. Bowhunters skip to the wind line. The direction tells you which stand to hunt. The speed tells you what to wear.
35 degrees and calm is a good morning. 35 degrees with a steady wind out of the north is a different sit, and most of the difference comes down to one question: is the wind getting through your jacket?
So instead of describing it, we pointed a leaf blower at four of ours.
The test
You can't see wind, so we built something that would show it.
We took a large clear storage bin, cut a hole in it just big enough for the end of a leaf blower, and filled the inside with feathers. Put a jacket between the blower and the bin, and the feathers tell you everything. If air gets through the fabric, they move. If it doesn't, they sit still.
It isn't a lab. It's a storage bin and a bag of feathers in our office. But you don't have to take our word for any of it. You can watch it happen.
We picked four pieces that sit at four different points on the wind scale, because they're made for four different mornings. None of them failed. Each one did the job it was designed to do.
Midweight Hoodie: the air goes straight through
That's on purpose. The Hoodie is a 92% polyester, 8% spandex double-knit scuba fleece, made to stretch on the draw and let heat out on the walk in. Over a light baselayer it works on its own from 50s to 65°F. In the 30s and 40s it becomes the mid layer under everything else.
It stays in rotation for about 90% of the season, which is why it's a best seller. It just isn't the piece you wear to stop wind. It's the piece you wear under the one that does.
Stealth Jacket: highly wind resistant, dead quiet
Stealth was built for the opposite morning: 30 to 50°F and dead calm. Its brushed high-pile face was chosen to cut contact noise, like your sleeve dragging across your ribs or a branch sliding over your shoulder. On a still morning, it's the quietest thing we make. Against the blower it held up well.
Midweight Puffy Jacket: very wind resistant, light enough to pack
The Puffy carries PrimaLoft® Gold insulation without the bulk or noise of a traditional puffy. Wear it alone on a crisp morning, or layer it in when a cold front moves through. Like Stealth, it has no windproof membrane, and like Stealth, it handled the blower well.
Midweight Sherpa Jacket: the feathers didn't move
A leaf blower on one side. A bin full of feathers on the other. Nothing happened.
Inside is sherpa fleece to hold your heat. Built into the jacket is a windproof membrane that keeps the wind from taking it. In the Sherpa, you'll hear the wind. You won't feel it.
Seven pieces, one membrane
Wind doesn't stop at your waist. The Sherpa Jacket shares the same windproof membrane with six other pieces, so you can block it head to toe, or only where you feel it most.
- Midweight Sherpa Jacket
- Midweight Sherpa Pant
- Midweight Sherpa Bib
- Midweight Core Warmth Vest
- Heavyweight Hooded Jacket
- Heavyweight Bib
- Heavyweight Vest
Where these fit in your system
If you don't know where to start, or you're trying to find the gap in what you already own, our layering guide breaks down what we recommend for each temperature range.
Find the morning you keep getting wrong. Then find the layer built for it.
