A Nearly Perfect Mid-Layer: Patagonia's Ultralight Down Shirt

Filed under: Gear, Gadling Gear Review

My travels take me to places with unpredictable weather, alpine regions where the temperature drops 20 degrees when a cloud crosses the sun, or coastal zones where the wind comes of the water and it's not as warm as I'd like it to be. I'm big on the standard platitude of dressing in layers for travel -- but I've become increasingly exacting over what, exactly, those layers are.

Patagonia's Ultralight Down Shirt is an almost perfect middle layer if you're going to be someplace where the temps can drop or change. For starters, it's super lightweight and packs down -- in its own stuff bag -- to about the size of a coffee cup. Or a grapefruit, a big one. You can find room for this in your bag. The shirt is warm, windproof, and water repellent -- you will need a hard shell in heavy rain, but a little drizzle or heavy fog won't soak you. It's cute, with waffle-y stitching and detailing at the cuffs, collar, and waist. And it comes in good colors -- fog (gray), cerise (a pink/red), black, and prickly pear (a springy green). Patagonia makes a down shirt for guys, too -- they get a dark blue instead of the cherry pink, and the stitching is in a checkerboard pattern rather than the zigzag pattern on the women's model.

It wears like a sweatshirt -- it's got a half zip so you pull it on over your head. The fit is good, the sizing seems fairly accurate (a big problem with a lot of outdoor wear, I've found). With a good base layer (I like merino wool) and a rain shell, you're set for a very broad range of conditions, and you're still packing very light.

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A Nearly Perfect Mid-Layer: Patagonia's Ultralight Down Shirt originally appeared on Gadling on Mon, 23 May 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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