This jacket is designed as a straight forward, lightweight, fully waterproof rain jacket so the hood is a fixed design and is not hideable or removable. The really nice feature of the hood is that it not only cinches around the face opening but has a draw string that cinches around your head so when you turn your head side to side the hood moves with you and you don't get lost in your hood.

Yes it is machine washable. Just follow the directions on the tag. Then when drying it, dry it alone in the dryer ON LOW HEAT and throw a few tennis balls in with it to loft the down back to full puffiness. Loud but effective!

Yes. The new S08 Momentum jackets do not have a zipper pull that flips over for zipping into the Mountain Light jacket. Other than that they are the same.

Yeah you can still zip it in. You'll have a little left over zipper in the mountain lite at the top but it shouldn't be a problem.

The Venture does not have a second inner zipper for zipping in a liner. It is designed as a lightweight rain jacket and forgoes the second zipper to save weight. You can still easily layer any fleece underneath it to warm things up when it is chilly out.

Yes the Denali is zip in compatible with any north face shell that has a zipper on the inside.For example the Mountain Light Parka is compatible:http://www.backcountry.com/store/TNF2485/The-North-Face-Moun ain-Light-Parka-Womens.html...if you happen to have an older jacket that has zippers that are not compatible with zipping into a newer jacket you can send it in to The North Face's warranty department and they wil upgrade your sipper at no charge.

There are washing instructions on the tag but to answer your question it is machine washable. Fleece is a pretty rugged material but don't overheat it or it will melt (unless your dryer is broken you shouldn't have to worry about this though). For drying I generally tumble it for about 5 minutes then hang it as fleece also dries quickly.

The woman's (or kids) model does not have pit zips.