The North Face Seven Summits Apex Bionic Jacket
January 27, 2008
Now, first I would like to issue a disclaimer. There are, indeed, seven different colors available in the Seven Summits collection, all of which represent a different mountain, the name of which is embroidered on the inside of the lower back along with the flag of the mountain’s country (except for Denali, which is represented by the flag of the mountain’s state, but whatever. Oh, by the way, good on The North Face for using the preferred name for the mountain and not “McKinley” the way that South Dakota senator thinks it should be). I did, in fact, test the orange color which also happens to be the “Everest” jacket. The color was the issue when picking the jacket, not the fact that the mountain is the biggest. In fact, I almost bought the lovely blue “Aconcagua” jacket, but I didn’t, because I already have many blue North Face jackets and fleeces. Note to North Face: that color blue is really awesome. So is the orange, as a matter of fact.
Anyway.
The Apex Bionic jacket is a stretchy softshell outer layer bonded to a bunny-soft inner fleece layer. It’s a lightweight jacket, but not literally light in weight, for you ultralighters out there. Ultralighters meaning ultralight backpackers, not pilots of ultralight aircraft, that is. I must say, I’m having some issues with clarifications in this post. Carrying on: I’ve had this jacket for a while but held off reviewing it because it’s taken me a while to figure out in which conditions the jacket performs best. It seems as if it would be a great winter layer, but every time I wore it, I froze my ass off unless I was constantly moving. After much experimentation, I’ve found that, with a technical base layer, this jacket kicks some serious winter booty. Without the technical base layer, I freeze. Not sure why this is, but now that I’ve figured that out, this jacket has become my winter staple. It breathes, it’s not bulky (major plus for us ladies), and it stretches to accomodate pretty much any movement. It’s a pretty decent windblocker, as long as you have that base layer I was talking about.
It’s cut “generously” but in the spirit of clarification, by “generous” I only mean that the sleeves are long enough to cover your arms when you move them, even at full stretch. The back is cut long to protect your tender butt crack from the ravages of wayward powder snow. The North Face gets even more kudos for managing to cut a jacket that fits a slim woman but gives her enough room for arm muscles. The rest of the jacket is cut slim and trim and looks great.
So, to sum up, a jacket that looks, fits, and performs well? Sign me up.
