Thoughts on this paddle top??

Gear
1

Looking at cutting gear and lightening my pack as I have a couple 100+ mile treks planned this summer. In the past I have always taken a paddle top and a uber light rain coat on trips. I did this for two reasons 1)Being as I like the how much better a rain coat breaths over just a dry top 2) I like having a hood.

This might be a good compromise between a dry top and raincoat. But ya know what they say about something that does everything good does nothing great. Sierra Trading Post has them on sale for $60 for men’s and $55 for women’s.

Just looking to bounce some ideas of people here. Never run more than Class III stuff anyways and in conjunction with pants and a spray deck on my packraft ought to be pretty comfortable through most of the splashy stuff and having a hood on the rainy days with miles of slow Class 1 run to get to the next place to start hiking over to the next drainage seems like it’d be pretty nice.

http://www.extrasport.com/product/tech_wear/dry_tops/xposed_hoodie.aspx

So thoughts??

2

It has no wrist, waist, or neck gasket. It is not viable thermal protection if you swim.

3

Hey-

I’m not sure about the jacket you post about, but I recently used a Stohlquist Torrent ST during two months in PAtagonia. http://www.stohlquist.com/dyn_prod.php?p=STO4789&k=29474
I, too, wanted a realtively lightweight top that could work both backpacking and paddling. I am/was very pleased with this jacket. It performed better than any raincoat I have ever had while hiking. After a few hours of splashy whitewater in a driving rain, however, I did get wet underneath. Still pleased. Short of a drysuit you have to expect some wetness in very wet conditions. I was also surprised at how fast it would dry out.

-mike