The North Face

Summit L3 50/50 Down Hooded Jacket - Men's

Move fast, no sweat

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] 50/50 Down does as advertised; retains warmth when needed, yet releases heat when on the move. Tested this jacket on a 2.5 hour alpine approach in Rocky Mountain National Park, something I would never do with other down jackets due to their propensity to trap heat during exertion. Jacket dumped heat accordingly and kept warm when exposed to winds whipping through alpine lakes. I've used it on other alpine and ice climbs since. Very impressed!

Love the feel and comfort

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] This fits well, I did have to buy the size up to get the fit. I love the feel and comfort the hoodie provides.

Amazing jacket

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] I love this jacket! It's light and warm. The loose fit, allows for layering if needed. I just wore it in 20 degree weather and it performed as advertised. I definitely recommend it!

perplexing

Familiarity:

I've put it through the wringer

Size Bought:

Large

Height:

5' 8"

Weight:

190

I wanted a breathable down jacket for high output activities. My initial impressions were: very scratchy interior stitching and pointy seams, which annoyed me wearing just a t-shirt; tons of stitched seams due to the interior baffle construction, perhaps too many especially for longer term durability and none are taped; elastic cuffs are loose then stretch so they aren't very useful to keep drafts out unless wearing gloves/mittens you are tucking under, the same for the elastic waist; there's an annoying hard, flat nylon trim piece on each cuff, which digs in and scratches. I'm not quite sure why there needed to be that square, flat, hard nylon trim piece since every other jacket and company can sew elastic trim cuff without it. Hopefully these things will soften up with wear over time, but it is definitely not the usual TNF quality; there's a loop on the stuff sack, but there is nowhere on the jacket to attach the loop to carry the stuff sack with, which is rather dumb. The last thing I need is to fumble around for the stuff sack, when the jacket could have just stuffed into one of the pockets or the stuff sack could have been attachable inside the jacket or in the pocket; for the intended purpose, the side hand pockets seem a little too low. They should have been slightly higher to accomodate for a harness. I'm not opposed to the non-zippered internal stash pockets, but would prefer if there was a tighter elastic top of the internal mesh pockets. Mesh pockets are stretchy, but the top is a big gaping hole; the zippers and zipper pulls are too small for mountaineering gloves/mitten use, which is baffling, considering, again, the purpose of the jacket; Burnt ochre is more like puke orange. I'm fine with it, but it's not the more vibrant looking orange in the pictures. I've worn the jacket a few times now, and the jacket is too warm for me, if you can believe it. I had worn the jacket biking about town and felt that the 50/50 wasn't going to provide much warmth in any kind of wind, since I felt the brisk wind while biking in 20F/-6C wearing a t-shirt under it. Doing some hikes in 0F/-18C with a very light pack, wearing only a LS capilene midweight baselayer under the jacket, I was too warm. Some sweat vapor did get trapped in the jacket with moisture accumulating in the jacket interior and my baselayer seemed to be working very hard feeling kind of damp but no significant saturation spots. I tend to run warm, but at 0F/-18C wearing only the baselayer under the jacket, I was rather surprised how warm I got and the lower breathability of the jacket given it is a 50/50 jacket. During breaks, I did stay warm. When the wind gusted around 20mph, I could definitely feel drafts but enough heat had built up that sustained cold wind penetration wasn't an issue. I didn't really feel any conductive cold from the backpack straps compressing the down either. So, what I thought was going to be too cold with 50/50 construction ended up being too warm. So, this jacket is a bit perplexing for me.