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Many brands to pick from, deep discounts, impeccable customer services, easy returns if you don’t like the stuff when it shows up.
I got a jacket for my friend for Christmas this year. I was going to get her the pea-green (very fashionable colour this past year) Marmot one that was in the REI sale catalogue for $99. When I got to the store the Marmot was right next to a TNF jacket (similar shades of green, but the TNF also had white panels on the sides). The TNF jackets were on sale for $140, and they seemed much more substantial than the Marmot shell. So she’s getting a TNF jacket this year.
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My REI credit card rawks! I use it for everything but gas – airline miles for that – and the dividend is usually pretty nice every year.
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TNF has some decent very high-end items; a lot of the “Summit Series” stuff is built for more technical use, and the prices reflect that. The TNF Himalaya parka (around $600) is decent for high/cold, although for specialized insulated outerwear, Mountain Hardwear and Feathered Friends are better choices.
It’s worth noting that TNF still makes really good expedition tents. Their VE-25 and Mountain 25 tents are good offerings; my Mountain 25 has withstood serious pounding on numerous climbs.
I bought this parka last year from BackCountry. I stay entirely warm, and that’s good in Boston.
I also have a Land’s End jacket similar to this one and I love it, but it’s not as long or nearly as warm as the parka.
My biggest gripe with The North Face is that they apparently think everyone is built like a greyhound. Their shirts don’t seem to fit anyone who has any sort of breadth to the shoulders.
Their Denali jacket is apparently so popular among the trendy college types that it’s become uncool. However I don’t hang out among the trendy college types and I scored a nice red one from REI for $60.00 last fall, so I’m happy.
For casual hiking and sailing, I do like my lighter weight Columbia Titanium fleece. It’s held up well, looks as good as anything ever does on me, and wasn’t particularly overpriced.
My main winter coat is currently an LL Bean model that is warm enough but which has an exasperating zipper that usually takes several tries to thread properly. This pretty much eliminates it as a serious high-altitude/bad weather jacket – spend a couple of minutes fumbling with a balky zipper on the top of Mt. Washington and you’ll end up emulating a character from a Jack London short story.
Eddie Bauer, as near as I can tell, hasn’t sold serious sportswear in at least 15 years. They gradually moved away from their roots towards overpriced trendy/fashionable wear and gadgets. All the local ones closed, though, so I haven’t seen their recent selection.
As for Lands End, you simply can’t go wrong with one of their Squall Jackets. Wear it for ten years until it becomes too shabby to be respectable, demote that jacket to “lawn work” and buy a new one. My only complaint is that they no longer make them with contrasting fleece linings. I loved my blue jacket with the red color. (I like to have a bit of extra color visible in a fall jacket so that no one is tempted to mistake me for a deer when I’m out hiking.)
Sorry, but I have to disagree with that part of your statement.
First off, “trending” and fashion are never concerns when I buy something. I buy it because “I” like it not because someone else does (just so people know where I am coming from on this… now to your point.
I go over a possible coat purchase from every angle, and while the net result of “rain proof” may be the same, how you get there is very different. I hate materials that are rubbery (which a couple brands are sporting) and plasticky ones are right out.
Columbia seems to have three different materials: One plasticky, their general omni-tech stuff, and some sort of satiny stuff that I love the feel of but don’t own any. I stick with their mainline stuff for rain barrier. I have been caught in some torrential downpours where everything below the hem has been soaked like I jumped in a river. Under the shell though is perfectly dry, even the cell phone pocket.
Oddly Columbia is really hit or miss on two key items, but most of the time they get it right. Pit zippers (when they remember to add them) are nice and long, and pockets for hands are usually nice and deep. On one shell model though, the pocket is just a mesh material rather than solid which sux. But usually they are good, with wide zippered openings, and low on the coat so you don’t feel like your arms are in slings.
Anyway, I don’t know a damn thing about North Face except the one parka I owned was pretty warm, and nice and large. I’d still own it but I wanted to try Columbia’s Omni-heat thing. That turned out to be futile for a couple reasons.
- What does 20% warmer mean? Totally subjective.
- I get older so I get colder easier. How can I compare a NF coat I had years ago to a coat today?
I like the 3-1 Columbia Omni-Heat thing over-all due to the flexible layering. However, I really want something that at 10 or Zero dF I am toasty enough to flip off mother nature but don’t want to spend $800 really.
Wish I could find better reviews than “I wont wear NF because Gangstas do!” or “I never buy things made in China” as these don’t tell me a thing about the coat. So thanks to many of you for some good info.
Stay warm all.
Heh, I was hiking around Patagonia and it could have been a damn North Face fashion shoot. I’m not going on any expeditions anytime soon, and I like North Face styling. I just bought a TNF shell and a Patagonia down sweater. Ha, looking on the REI website, the price just went up another $20 (I got mine with a 20% discount, so $60 off current price).
I’ve got a Eddie Bauer Goretex shell that has served me well for 10 years.
I buy Columbia fleece fairly often because it’s way cheaper than TNF. I bought a pair of Columbia duck boots that broke apart after about 10 wearings, so fuck Columbia shoes.
IMHO:
Eddie Bauer is decent gear but expensive as you’re paying at least as much for the name as for the gear.
The North Face is the same, but made for really skinny people.
Columbia is decently priced, fits well and is decent gear. I have Columbia shirts, pants and fleece jackets that are over 20 years old and are still in good shape. A few items still look almost-new even tho they’ve been out on hundreds of miles of trails and rivers.
I particularly like Columbia’s long sleeve button-up shirts.
I got all excited to see Kyla posting, then I realized this was a five-year old zombie. 
Oh, and the old Columbia Bugabootoo, which was a glorified duck boot, was my go-to boot for winter barn chores, and with extra-wide stirrups, I rode in them quite a bit. Good support, waterproof, and very warm. The NF equivalent tried to look “technical” and ended up ugly.
My wife INSISTED on buying me an overpriced, horribly over rated North Face parka for Christmas a couple years ago. She spent 3 hundred bucks on that piece of s*it. Couldn’t convince her not to. It supposedly has this thin miracle kind of lining that’s supposed to keep you warm in near -40 weather. Well, when it’s even remotely kind of cold, so that I don’t freeze to death, I’m wearing my 6 year old Columbia.
My experience is North Face is garbage, IMHO.
Yeah, I was already formulating my reply when I realized this was a zombie thread. Then I wondered if I had posted to it, found my post, and it turns out that my five year old post was exactly what I would have typed today. Spooky.
To be relevant to the OP, I note that the Columbia Titanium fleece that I commented on five years ago is hanging in my office as I type and, except for a bald patch due to getting too close to a campfire, still looks pretty good. I did try getting a backup version a couple of years ago and they had switched to “athletic” fits. Which apparently means someone in the low teens on the BMI index.
Well, I ended up with some Columbia gear, something with a lining that looks like aluminum foill and is supposed to keep you warm. It is inferior to the ZeroXposur jacket that it replaced in terms of keeping warm. If I had it to do again, I would not have paid what I did, even thought I did get it at an outlet store.
Since it is almost the season, I will throw in a plug for Patagonia. Their stuff may be fashion sideways (or it could just be me), but it keeps you warm. I also have (and had) stuff from the North Face, Eddie Bauer, and Columbia, and cannot really complain about any of it.
I got a NorthFace black rain jacket as a gift and it’s been the best jacket I’ve ever had.
So I realize this thread is older but I’m in the market for a new jacket and its getting annoying to say the least. Let me start by saying I’m in Seattle, it gets cold here but also windy and in december / january it get cold with a lot of moisture in the air that just goes to ur bones and freezes you. I also go hiking a lot and this year will start to go snowshoeing and possibly start skiing again. I need something that can keep me warm when I’m out walking the dog and dry when I’m on the mountain. I’m ok with dropping the cash but I’m not looking to bee all GQ.
I went with Columbia originally and picked up the Lhotsie Mountain II Interchange jacket. However I’ve gone through 2 returns because the sizing is incredibly weird. I’m 6’4’’ and about 195lbs. The columbia in large wasn’t broad enough in the shoulders and the XL was like i could wear that thing 9mo pregnant (if i were a chick). So needless to say I cashed out and now have been scouring the interwebz all night trying to find new ideas of things to go look at.
TNF ~ I went to the seattle store and everything just looked like fashionable crap. In the sense that you aren’t paying for quality more than you are paying for a TNF logo on your shoulder. I will say with the Columbia jacket I did like the Omni-Heat and it did seem to work well. They have a new jacket called the Men’s Millennium Flash Jacket that fits me quite well but seems thin and I’m not sure it would suffice snowshoeing. And god forbid if something were to happen on the mountain and I got lost/seperated from the group or injured and say had to spend a week in the wilderness I’d rather them not find a frozen corpse because I had on inferior gear.
Will look into REI and Marmot from what I’ve gathered so far… Any other suggestions of more current gear would be sick.
Years ago, when this thread was born, REI had a 100% lifetime return policy. Sadly, they have since dropped it.
Quoted for truth.
I ski most evenings and all weekends and holidays in the winter (backcountry, telemark, alpine, cross-country, kite). I’ve been wearing the same NF jacket and bib pants thata they comped me in 1996, and I am in no rush to replace them, for their technical design is exceptionally good. Last year a fellow with whom I was skiing purchased NF ski pants, and blew them out on their first day of skiing, with the fault being both in the technical design and in the construction. Pathetic quality from what once used to be a high end company.
For me, the record for durability was MEC. A few weeks ago I tossed a rain jacket (the Goretex seam covers needed re-taping – could have been repaired) that I had been wearing since the mid 1980s, and I am still wearing a pair of MEC river pants from back then. I don’t know what their quality is like these days – they are no longer making river pants, but the next time I need to purchase serious clothing, I’ll see what they have before making a decision.
Aside from durability and technical features, if fit is an issue, you’ll find Columbia fits stouter people than most good quality manufacturers. That young skinny person ice climbing? Arc’teryx. That middle aged weekend hiker with a tummy (yup, that’d be me)? Columbia. That being said, Columbia also has some terrific shorts well vented ultra light shirts that are truly quick-dry (their PFG line).
It’s frustrating how some companies stop producing high end products once they start being able to sell cheap crap to the masses. I’ve run into that with Thule ski boxes. My neighbour has one that is fifteen or more years old and is bombproof. I bought one two seasons ago, and it didn’t last a season. They replaced it, but the replacement didn’t last the next season. After half a year of haggling, they replaced it for this season, and the trim on it lasted a little more than 24 hours.
Jack Weinberg said “We don’t trust anyone over thirty.” Well, I’d say don’t trust any outdoor clothing manufacturer over thirty.
Come to think of it, this summer I purchased a Level Six spray top. After three days of use, I sent it back to the manufacturer for a delamination repair. So you can’t even trust the outdoor clothing manufacturers that are under thirty. I guess the only solution is to ski and paddle naked.
Thats sad. My dad who is now in his mid 80’s (im 31 lol) used to take me and my brother to the norther woods in Wisconsin and in the UP (Michigan Upper Peninsula) for Snow Shoeing and every few years we had to get new gear because we were growing. I probably went from age 12 to 14 replaced stuff 14 to 17 replaced and then 17 to 19. Each time we out grew our clothes it seemed like the quality was getting worse by the same manufacturer. My dad who wasn’t growing had gear from the early 70’s that must have had thousands of miles of snowshoeing and was still going strong.
Now that I’m in my 30’s and can’t rely on my parents to buy clothes it comes down to what I said earlier. I don’t mind shelling out $300, I do however mind shelling out $300 every season and more so I mind if the gear doesn’t perform as needed. I’ve been going through TNF, Columbia, and Marmot and from what I can tell most of it if you’re safety depended on it, (as in if you were out in the boonies and got stuck and had to rely on what you brought with you) you would be hosed. Now I’m not expecting a $300-$350 jacket to work miracles here, but I do expect it to last at least 5 years of abuse and to keep me warm.
Also on principle I refuse to wear TNF because now days like today I go to the grocery store for a few items and I literally counted 26 people all wearing TNF jackets and vests. Most of which didn’t look like it would keep you warm. I for one am not a big fan of looking good while freezing my ass off.