berghaus knoydart jacket final thoughts

Tue, Nov 15, 2011

I’ve been using the Berghaus Knoydart jacket kindly supplied by Go Outdoors for the last three months and thought I’d bring the review to a close with my experiences of it throughout the period. The original outing with the jacket was impressive for the price and I rather liked it. Since then, I’ve used it around the house to store the logs in heavy rain and wind, some more hillwalks and even taken it on a business trip to Bristol. A lot of outdoor jackets are over engineered for the general hillwalking public, the worst of the features being a helmet compatible hood. No hillwalker wears a helmet. I used to wear a helmet in the days when I hacked my way up ice in the winter but not these days so I’m not in the market for a helmet compatible jacket but most of them seem to offer this pointless feature. It means there has to be tons of drawcord in the hood to gather in the extra material that isn’t used when you’re not wearing a helmet. The Berghaus Knoydart doesn’t have a helmet compatible hood so you don’t look like a chump walking down Bristol high street. Also, because it’s not festooned with mountaineering zipped pockets you get away with wearing it on Bristol high street. The pockets are a compromise between its hillwalking aspirations and allowing you to wear it in daily mode, as they are below the hip belt and perfectly placed for standing in the bus queue in Bristol. They are also good for keeping your hands warm when walking into a gale on a hill.

All in all I really liked this jacket. It’s a good price, it’s practical, it’s waterproof and I love the green colour. It’s not a winter jacket due to the hood not having a wired peak and you really need that in driving snow but it does cinch down and keeps most of the weather out. Plus I prefer a stiffer fabric in winter that keeps the jacket from being distorted by high winds.

There was a bit of an emergency last month, when we were having the near hurricanes and monsoon rain. The water supply off the hill stopped running so I went up to the tank to have a look and the pipe was blocked. It was gusting around 40mph, enough to blow me around and it was pelting with rain being driven horizontally across the hillside. I had the jacket on and had to have my arm submerged in the tank up to the elbow for 10mins at a time while I tried to blast water down the pipe with the neighbours’ portable water pump. I cinched up the velcro wrists on the jacket and I was amazed that even after 10 mins submerged in freezing water my arm was dry. Plus I stayed dry during the storm.

So all in all a very good jacket for the price. If you’re on a budget then it’s a good choice for day to day hillwalking in spring and summer. I still haven’t found a use for the inside mesh pocket though!

Go Outdoors have a Berghaus brand page if you want to take a look at the other Berghaus products. There are two brands I’m a fan of and I’m not just saying this as I have a jacket to review. My first rucsack was a Berghaus and I use Berghaus salopettes in winter and really like their paclite stuff. My other favourite brand is Rab as it fits me.