Haglöfs Spitz jacket - First Look

Haglofs Spitz Jacket - First Look

Price: £280

Weight: 470 grammes (medium)

Features: Waterproof shell jacket using Gore-Tex Pro Shell 3-layer fabrics - 315 Ripstop and 317 Cordura-reinforced material - roll-away, helmet-compatible hood with three-way adjustability, two-way waterright front zipper with wind flap, reinforced shoulder, back and hip, two large Napoleon pockets, one sleeve pocket with laminated watertight zippers, two inner pockets, laminated, fleece-lined chinguard, laminated watertight pit-zips, Velcro-adjustable cuffs with bellows, single-handed adjustable hem, sealed with Gore-Tex microtape

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What's It For?

The Spitz is aimed at climbers, mountaineers and skiiers who want full waterproof and windproof protection with durable reinforcement in strategic areas and a helmet-compatible hood, but with light weight.

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The Techy Bits

The key to the jacket's light weight is the new Gore-Tex Pro Shell fabric. You can find more information about it from the links at the bottom of this review, but in short, it's a new waterproof and breathable fabric from Gore which uses a lighter, but tougher woven backer which is not only tougher than the old knitted version used in last year's XCR fabrics, but 50 per-cent lighter too and slides more easily over other layers.

Jackets made from Pro Shell tend to be lighter anyway, but Haglofs has maximised the weight saving by using two different grades of Pro Shell in the Spitz. The shoulders, outer sleeves, back and hips use a tougher, Cordura-reinforced grade of the fabric, while the rest of the jacket is a lighter, but still strong, rip-stop version. There are also weight savings from the use of thinnner microtape to back up the seams.

Watertight zips are used all round for pockets, pit-zips and main zip and the hood has three adjusters: one for the face aperture at the front, one which grips the top of the head or helmet and finally one which allow you to pull the peak back and out of your eyes.

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How It Performs

The Spitz won a design award at this year's ISPO trade show and it's easy to see why. Not only is it a full-on mountaineering shell that weighs a genuine 470 grammes, but it's beautifully cut and designed too.

The cut is short for harness friendly use and the fit is quite tapered, so unless you're on the thin side, you won't be wearing anything much thicker than a microfleece or Powerstretch top underneath. It's not restrictive though and that, along with the easy movement of the Pro Shell microgrid backer over inner layers made for easy mobility.

As far as Pro Shell goes, as we've said in other tests of 2007 jackets, we think it's still less breathable than eVent though maybe slightly more breathable than XCR, but its real advantages are the slippy, slidey way it moves over mid and base layers, its toughness and the reduction in weight.

The Cordura-based, reinforced Pro Shell areas on the shoulders, back, outer sleeves and hips feel as tough as old boots and should cope well with hard use.

We liked the three-way adjustable hood with it's massive stiffened peak as well. It's fine with a helmet, but also works well with a bare or hatted head, moving with your direction of gaze and adjusting easily. Other details are also impressive. The bellowed cuffs allow easy venting and mean the sleeves can be rolled up over your forearms without issues.

For further venting, big pit-zips have double-ended watertight zips meaning you can open them from either end, though you may have to pull the sleeve taut in some positions. There's minimal bulk in your armpit too, so they're unobtrusive.

The Hypalon zip-pulls with their natty cut-out Haglofs logo are a pleasure to use even with gloved hands. Ditto hood and hem adjusters.

The two big chest pockets both swallow an OS map and sit high out of harm's way. The Napoleon-style access looks neat and works well for easy access to pocket contents, but if you habitually use shell jacket pockets as handwarmers, you'll be looking for an alternative place to pouch your paws. That, together with the short cut of the jacket, does limit it slightly if you prefer a longer, more traditional mountaineering design.

For full-on protection we'd suggest teaming these - like other shorter-cut mountain jackets - with a softshell trouser or shell pants / trousers / legwear or whatever you want to call them ;-)

Initial Verdict

Haglofs really is producing some lovely kit at the moment and the Spitz is no exception. Like Rab with its Super Dru, the combination of different fabrics in different areas gives an excellent compromise between protection and weight. And that 470 grammes is a genuine weight from our highly accurate digital balance.

The Pro Shell fabric is tough, mobile and very wearable, although still outbreathed by eVent we feel, but the design doesn't take second place to anyone. Neat cut with good mobility and no lifting when reaching for holds, a decent hood and effective as well as aesthetically pleasing details like cuffs and zip pulls.

It may not fit more generously built users, there's limited space for thick mid-layers and the lack of hand-warming pockets will put some buyers off, but if you can live with those limitations, you'll be hard pushed to find anything better on the market.

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Light, tough, nicely cut and beautifully detailed. Close cut won't suit everyone, lack of handwarmer pockets.

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Haglofs web site

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