Gear

I was talking to a friend over the weekend who was in the market for a new jacket. He's narrowed the list down to the Lowe Alpine Elite or the new ME Changabang. He is currently leaning towards the Elite as he's a big fan of Lowe gear.

Before he took the plunge I thought I'd ask if anybody has had any first hand experience with either of these jackets?

He's after a neat fitting jacket which will mainly be used for winter climbing and general mountaineering. I've read that the ME is a nice neat fit but what about the Elite?

The Changabang is brilliant. Its quite a short jacket and a very good fit. Most of all it'll take any weather yoyu care to throw at it. Basically it's the best Mountain coat I've ever used.

Predictably I've used both. The Changabang is a nice, neat jacket with a great hood, cut quite short though and the front uses lots of lamination and zips, so feels a bit stiff.

The Elite isn't, to my mind, quite so neatly cut - but fit's personal anyway - the eVENT fabric is appreciably more breathable than the ME's XCR and the angled zip gizzmo reduces bulk at the centre of the neck quite successfully. The hood isn't in the same league as the ME one though. It's okay with a helmet as the helmet rim tends to make up for a floppy hood, but it's not so great on a bare head, feels sort of floppy and not quite right where the ME one fits well and turns with your head.

One other option he might consider is the Macpac Prophet which is heavy duty XCR thing with a good hood and a very neat, tapered cut. Not cheap at 300-odd quid, but very good climbing shell.

I just received an Elite shell in XL. The fit is not neat at all, unless you are seriously fat. Also, the quality control sucks. It was cheap, though, so I guess you get what you pay for...

I have a Changabang and as said it is a good jacket. However due to it being very short, which is mentioned above, the water runs off and into the fly zip of my gortex waterproof trousers - not very nice.

So it would be okay with waterproof trousers without a fly zip but something worth considering as other reviewers don't seem to have come across this problem.