Here's the problem, you can't have it all. Nope. For starters I LOVE this jacket. I'm on my second one after nearly a decade. I know exactly what it is and exactly what its not. It's ALWAYS in my pack or my luggage. It's light and compressible. The fabric has a brushed finished so it's quiet. It's of course a fantastic windbreaker. It's got solid pit zips. It's stretchy. But it's not gonna keep you dry on a 3 hour hike in a PNW downpour. It's not marine grade foul weather gear. It's not even a 3-layer hardshell. It will keep you dry running the garbage can to the curb or taking fido out for a quick one. It works in a light rain/drizzle. It's perfect for that 45min Summer shower in the Sierra or Rockies while you wait most fit out under a leaky tree. Its NOT 'lets go walk the dog in a Bainbridge island downpour or a jacket your gonna put on to go work down on dock on the 10th straight day of rain Greenville Maine. You can't have it all. So for the naive that like to post "my waterproof breathable (WPB) rain jacket leaks"... it probably doesn’t. All WPB rely on the DWR to shed water. Once that DWR fails the exterior of the jacket "wets out"... meaning the outside stars to absorb and hold water. The second that happens you are now hiking in something with the breathability of a trash bag... Not just this jacket, ALL WPB jackets. And once that happens every bit of sweat goes no where and it gets wet inside your shell. This nice soft quite stretchy exterior shell, it's DWR is gonna fail in a downpour. It just does. It’s the price you pay for it weighing nothing, being stretchy and quiet and compressing into a water bottle's volume. All that said I love this jacket. It does what it does better than any other I've found. The vast majority of rain gear made and sold is for people who going out in the rain for a very short period of time. Think about it. How often do most people spend more than 5 min. in a torrential down pour? … very few. Very few go hike, climb, boat etc for hours in the rain. The people who can’t come in? who can’t get out of the rain, 99% don’t use WPB garments. Manage your expectations folks. Maybe if a billionaire puts his team engineers on developing a next gen DWR that doesn't fail we will see a WPB rain jacket that truly does it all. Until then watch Elon's rocket fuselage land vertically, be amazed, then accept that you ain't Elon and manage your expectations. Cheers.
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