Rab Microlight Jacket - a jacket that fits!

I have been wanting to get a light technical puffy jacket for a while but haven't made up my mind what brand and size to get.  I didn't want to just randomly pick one and order it over the internet for fear that it does not fit well.  I have been looking at the Arcteryx, Mountain Hardwear and Rab jackets.  Mountain Hardwear is the standard in the light puffy jacket segment with their Ghost Whisperer jacket.  I went back to Sail a few times to try it on, but I just really don't like the sizing.The sizing is what I call the fat body short arm syndrome.  Many shirts have the same problem I find.  In an effort to not have to offer many sizes of shirts, the industry standard sizing usually means that for me (175lbs, 6'2" tall, wide shoulders), in a medium size, the chest size seems to fit OK, but the arms are way too short.  When I put on a large, the arms (sometimes) tend to be long enough, but the chest is way too large and baggy.   This, of course depends on the brand that you are trying on.  I find certain companies offer sizing that's more compatible with my body type.

The Mountain Hardwear Ghost Whisperer falls into the type that does not fit me well.  You would think that, for an outdoor company, the fit would be a little more tailored to the athletic, lean body type, rather than the cheeseburger eating couch potato and take your dog for a walk type of body with a potbelly...  but it's more suited to the latter type I find.

So, doing a quite exhaustive search on the internet for a jacket that is more fitted and has long enough arms for someone my size, some recommended Rab jackets.  I checked some out at a local shop and the large fitted well, although the selection was quite limited and they only had a Twilight color jacket in stock (navy blue).  I purchased one online from a surf shop in the UK instead.  The British pound's value has tanked recently, making it worthwhile to buy stuff from there.

I ordered a beluga color(dark grey) jacket .  The fit of the size large Rab Microlight jacket?  It's amazing.  I recommend it to those who have trouble finding a proper fitting jacket that are lean.

The function?  It's so comfortable, like a duvet surrounding you, and so light for the warmth.  It's no wonder these types of jackets are so popular these days.  I notice there aren't many fleeces out there now, and these jackets are much more popular, although they are quite a bit more expensive than the fleece.  The fill is 750fill power hydrophobic down, so it offers some protection when it is raining out.  The fabric is Pertex that supposedly has a tight enough weave to prevent feathers from poking through, and it is also has a DWR coating, again to help shed some light rain.  It even came with a stuffsack in one of the pockets, although I would just prefer to turn the jacket inside out and stuff it in the one chest pocket or one of the hand warming pockets instead.  It works great doing this, although they should have a zipper pull on the other size for this to work a little better, as the zipper pull is on the opposite side when turned inside out.  Bonus:  If you stuff it into one of the handwarmer pockets, it makes a great pillow too.

Mountain Hardwear Ghost 2 Sky Tent Review

I totally have to give Mountain Hardwear props for their great customer service and standing by their products with their limited lifetime warranty.  I'm on my third tent which has been replaced twice for free under their warranty.  This tent is my lightweight backcountry 2 person tent I have been using on many of my adventures.  I bought my first tent in 2004 or 2005 - it was an Airjet 2.  This was a single wall lightweight tent that I liked quite a bit.  I had it for 3 or 4 years and the seams started to degrade and fall apart - something to do with the chemicals in the material or taped seams breaking down.  I sent it in for warranty at the time and they replaced this tent with a Skyledge 2.1 tent for free, as the Airjet was discontinued. The Skyledge was a standard two wall tent with two entrances and two vestibules, which gave lots of real estate for stashing gear and easy entrances if you happen to have towo people in the tent (I only did once and it was cramped).

Now the Skyledge 2.1 I have had for the last 8 years and it served me well those 8 years.  I was car camping just a month ago with it and noticed the bottom side of the fly getting sticky when it has never been sticky... along with the taped seams flaking.  At one point while just zipping up the fly, one of the taped seams just peeled off with little force.  Seems like a degradation issue again, but this time the tent lasted much longer.  I contacted Mountain Hardwear and they told me to send it in for assessment. I didn't really expect much from them. After all, 8 years for a tent is quite enough already.  There's certainly not much other pieces of gear, especially ones containing some kind of fabric that you would expect to last much longer than that.

Mountain Hardwear Ghost Sky 2 Tent

Mountain Hardwear/Columbia Sportswear (they are the same company) called me after receiving the tent to say they would replace my tent for free under warranty!  Great stuff.  They even gave the the option of either getting the newer model Ghost Sky 2 tent or the Ghost UL2 tent.  I chose the Ghost Sky 2 tent.  Although the Ghost 2 is slightly heavier than the Ghost UL 2 tent (4lb 1 oz vs 2lb 9 oz),The Ghost Sky 2 is just is much more practical - with a square footprint instead of a trapezoidal footprint, 2 entrances and 2 useful vestibules instead of the 1 not-so-useful (as reports say) vestibule of the UL 2 tent. For super ultralight expeditions I could also use my Hennessey Hammock, so I chose the Ghost Sky 2 tent.

The Ghost 2 tent is really a newer version of my  older Skyledge 2.1 tent.  It amazes me that tents continue to evolve so much.  The improvements on the Ghost Sky 2 tent are noticeable andd welcome.  The two main poles have a connector in the center.  This makes for much quicker setup and breakdown, as you can do both poles at the same time, and justclip the center of the tent to the attachment point instead of having to thread the poles through the c-clip on the Skyledge.  the shorter crossbar for the doors just clips into the top and attaches at the sides with a ball joint clip.  Fancy stuff and so easy to set up.  There are 12 pole clips that are quick and easy to clip to the poles as well.

The inner tent is almost all mesh, perfect for gazing at the stars flyless on non-rainy nights.  The two teardrop shaped entrance ports are large enough to enter with ease.  Inside, there's 4 pockets for storing gear and loop provisions in the upper part for a gear loft if that's desired.  The fly is easy to put on with some toggles that attach to the pole attachments on the 4 corners and velcro ties to the poles in the 4 corners as well, halfway up. 

I used this tent car camping, kayak camping and backpacking in Algonquin Park recently and it's a great tent, I would recommend it to anyone, for it's features, well thought out design, qucikness and ease of pitching, and it's light weight.

And again, props to Mountain Hardwear/Columbia for replacing this tent free under warranty with no hassles.  I'm sure i'll get a lot of use out of this tent in my future adventures.