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Reviews > Rain Gear > Jackets and Pants > Outdoor Research Zealot Jacket > Roger Caffin > Long Term Report
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| Reviewer: | Roger Caffin |
| Age: | 61 |
| Gender: | M |
| Weight: | 63 kg (139 lb) |
| Height: | 166 cm (65") |
| Email address: | r dot [surname] at acm dot org |
| Home: | Sydney, Australia |
I started bushwalking (the Australian term) at 14, then took up rock climbing at University with the girl who became my wife and is my walking partner. Later on we took up ski touring and canyoning. Winter and summer, we prefer long hard trips by ourselves: about a week in Australia, up to two months in Europe/UK. We prefer fast and light in unfrequented trackless country. We would be out for at least three months a year. Over the last four years we have reduced our pack weights from 18 - 20 kg (40 - 45 lb) each to about 12 kg (26 lb), including food, for week-long trips. I designed and made much of our lightweight gear myself.
I am also the maintainer of the Australian aus.bushwalking FAQ web site www.bushwalking.org.au/FAQ/.
| Manufacturer | Outdoor Research | www.orgear.com |
| Country of manufacture | China | |
| Style | Medium length alpine jacket, or 'storm shell' | |
| Size | Medium, 'Wasabi' (ie green) | |
| Material | 15 denier Gore-Tex PacLite | |
| Features claimed: | Fully seam-taped | |
| Narrow seam tape | ||
| Separating water-resistant front zip | ||
| Single, rear-pull, hood adjustment | ||
| Slash Napoleon chest pocket | ||
| Hem drawcord | ||
| Weight (measured) | 211 g (7.44 oz) | |
| Guarantee | 'Infinite Guarantee' | |
| MSRP | US$199 | |
The company web site says: "This spartan design brings waterproof/breathable performance down to the weight of a windshell. Ultralight 15D Gore-Tex® PacLite® fabric and narrow taped seams offer excellent protection while keeping the Zealot’s packed profile to a minimum. A slash napoleon chest pocket with a water-resistant zipper keeps maps and GU packets close at hand. The single, rear-pull hood adjustment offers a full-range of foul-weather adjustability. A double-separating, water-resistant front zipper maximizes venting without adding unnecessary bulk. Elastic cuff closures and a drawcord hem adjustment repel weather on stormy alpine descents."
The Zealot has been on a number of trips, but some of them have been quite dry and the jacket has stayed at the bottom of my pack. However, the small size and weight has meant this has not been much of a worry. The jacket has also been thoroughly tested in our Alps, where my wife and I have had some 'real' weather. I will use a recent snow shoe trip in our Alps at heights from 1,700 m to 2000 m (5,600' to 6,600') as an example. Temperatures were around freezing most of the time, and we had snow, sleet and 'adequate' rain. While I was officially testing the jacket, my wife did also get to try the jacket out and did make a few observations which I had missed. I used my wife as the model for the photos here as I normally do the photography. I also was able to experiment with the hood bungee cord while she was wearing it and see what was happening: I couldn't do this when my head was inside it. Sadly I did not take pictures on the last day when the weather was decidely 'off': my camera was sheltering under cover for the day. But the jacket did cop a lot of rain and sleet that day.
The jacket is quite comfortable to wear, and I think the lightness and softness of the fabric has a lot to do with this. I find I am not always really aware it is on me. I can wave my arms around freely without dragging the jacket around. This is starkly different from what those old 800 g (20 oz) three-layer Gore-Tex Taslan jackets were like. The Zealot fabric was fully waterproof and windproof of course, and the sealed seams all worked just fine. Under the conditions of this trip, getting sweaty inside was not a consideration. It doesn't have 'pit zips', but I don't like pit zips anyhow.
The length of the jacket seems fine: not too short and certainly not too long. (Australian custom is for a very long jacket, but sometimes I think that custom is overdone.) In bad weather I need to wear overtrousers with it of course. The bungee cord around the hem of the jacket works fine to keep the hem down, and the captive cordlock on the bungee cord is fairly easy to use, thanks to the little bead on the free loop end of the cord. Single-handed operation is possible, but I find using two hands is better. The use of bungee cord rather than plain nylon cord at the hem is excellent.
The waterproof front zipper is somewhat stiff and has been a bit of a pain to get started every time. It seems to take me several tries (each time) before I get the two ends joined properly and can move the slider up. I think this may be due to the heavy plastic coating on the zip fabric. Once I have the ends joined properly the zip seems to slide fairly reliably. I do ask myself each time I struggle to get the zip started whether a non-waterproof zip with a traditional storm flap would be better. The colder temperatures did not seem to make the zipper any harder to operate.
I am still not sure about the simple fixed elastic closure on the cuffs. They are comfortable, but the elastic means I can't open up the sleeves when I am warm. This can make the jacket less than perfect under mild conditions. However, on the snow trip in question this did not seem to matter: the weather was generally cold enough. The elastic did make it difficult to get the cuff over the wrist part of my ski mitts, so many times the mitts went over the jacket sleeve instead. In rain this means there is some tendency for water to get inside the mitts when my hands hang down. True, but when my hands point upwards the rain is deflected. There is no perfect solution here!
I didn't find much use for the Napolean pocket at the front, but that may be because I rarely carry anything in jacket pockets. I have found them to be good water-buckets in the past. Howeevr, I notice that some people use jacket pockets more than I do. The waterproof zip left me slightly uncertain. It seemed to be moderately effective until the last day, when I put a little scrap of newspaper in the pocket by itself: it had someone's phone number on it. Well, the newspaper got wet. Did the zip leak just slightly? This may be so, but it is hard to tell afterwards.
I have deliberately not dragged the jacket through any of our worst scrub as I did not see it as being suitable for this. All the same, the fabric does slide off scrub quite well, especially wet scrub.
My use of the hood has confirmed my initial impression that it is quite large. In fact the large size turned out to be a significant problem in bad weather as the single drawcord at the back was not sufficient to adjust the fit. The hood kept blowing back off my head in the wind, despite all my efforts at adjustment. My wife also tried the jacket out, and she had exactly the same problem even when I could see what I was doing when I was adjusting the bungee cord at the back of her head.
In the picture here the bungee cord at the back travels in a tunnel to the front as shown by the blue dashed line. There it seems to be connected to the middle of another length of cord as shown by the red dashed line. That length of bungee cord is anchored at each end of the red dashed line. The idea seems to be that the tension on the blue bungee cord will not only tighten the fit of the hood around my head, but it will also tighten the fit at the front edge by pulling sideways on the red cord. This new 'fashion' of hood adjustment has appeared on several jackets recently. Well, it didn't work, and the hood kept blowing off my head in the wind, and I can only ascribe this to the lack of tension in the red cord. The designers might say I should have tightened the bungee cord at the back even more, but that didn't seem to be comfortable when I tried it.
I don't think this new adjustment method fashion/design works all that well - so much for 'fashion' changes. I think the red bungee cord should be adjustable in the normal time-tested fashion at the point marked 'X'. When the official Test is over I shall modify the design accordingly. I've tested enough hoods over the years to know this will work.
There is no such thing as the perfect hood, but I think this one actually has several small problems.
Overall, the hood seems to me to be designed for someone wearing a helmet in seriously bad weather. This does not always apply, and for a jacket this light I think the traditional hood arrangement would be (much) better.
The very light weight and small volume of the Zealot jacket means I don't mind carrying the jacket just as a safety item. It has handled severe weather conditions in our Alps on a major snow trip, and performed quite well apart from the hood problems. It has proved good enough that my wife has even 'borrowed' it off me at times.
I hate it when 'designers' try to introduce street fashion features into serious outdoor clothing: it never works.
My assessment for the points I was monitoring are as follows:
