Almost perfect

By Ben Lyman Ranked #663 - Men's Technical Shells August 17, 2009

Without a doubt, this is a HARD shell, and it is waterproof, not water resistant. It was raining over 0.5"/hour this morning, and although my pants were soaked after a 10-minute dog-walk, the Stoic 2.0 kept me dry from my head to my waist for the subsequent walk to work, walk for coffee, walk to meeting across town...and the exterior even dried quickly enough that it was comfortable to put back on after only a short period on the hangar.Amazingly for a jacket this waterproof, I hiked two laps of summer skiing this weekend wearing this jacket. It was about 47 degrees and raining lightly, but with the pit zips open, I was comfortable hiking with all my ski gear on my back, even straight up scree slopes and sun-cupped August snow fields.I do have two small complaints so far. The pit zips are too short, and stop just below my armpits. Another three inches of venting would come in handy if I needed to dump heat, as I doubtless will when hiking this winter with more than just a base layer under the jacket. The other problem is that the zipper is sticking a bit at the bottom. It seems to have loosened up a bit over the first week of use, but it could be pain to deal with this winter if I have to take my gloves off to zip up my coat.

Update: The hood on this thing is giant! In the attached photo, I'm wearing a baseball cap under the hood, and there was about a half-inch of hood extending past the brim of the hat. A deep hood like this is a great feature when it's dumping rain or snow, and the hood may even be large enough to make putting it over my helmet practical when skiing (usually I feel really constricted when wearing a hood over a helmet).

View Details: Backcountry.com Stoic 2.0 Shell - Men's

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