Mountain Equipment Astron Hoody - First Look

Mountain Equipment Astron Hoody - First Look

 

Price: £120 SRP

Weight: 409 grammes (medium)

Features: Summer soft shell made from a combination of Polartec Powershield Lite and Polartec Powerstretch, active cut, flatlock seams throughout, full-length YKK zipper, two external hand pockets, Polatrtech Powerstretch inner cuffs, adjustable hem draw-cord, hood with volume adjuster. Also available as Astron Jacket without hood and women's Astral jacket without hood.

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What's It For?

Mountain Equipment describes the Astron Hoody as 'the perfect summer soft shell' meaning it gives enough protection to keep out wind and light rain and snow showers but is still breathable enough to cope with warmer conditions and stay comfortable. Pockets are designed to clear harness or pack belts, so you can happily use it for general hill wear or for climbing.

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The Techy Bits

Polartec's Powershield fabric is one of our favourite soft shell materials. It's a perforated PU membrane, which means that while it's techncally something like 'only' 98 per-cent windproof, it's significantly more breahtable than 100 per-cent windproof fabrics like, say, Gore's Windstopper. That makes it ideal if you move fast and run warm or in milder conditions.

The Lite version used here is, like it says on the can, erm, light or lite with just a very thin fleece backing so it's not too warm.

The other neat touch is that the panels down the side of the trunk are made from Powerstretch for added breathability. The idea is that they're out of the direct firing line of wind, but allow easy air flow to cool your trunk.

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How It Performs

So far we're really like the Astron Hoody. Most windproof softshells are way too warm for us in summer conditions but the combination of breathable Powershield Lite and the Powerstretch side panels really does seem to work.

There's enough wind protection to cope with those chilly summer morning breezes, but sufficient breathability to keep comfy when you're burning up the trail to the bottom of a crag or hammering towards a trig point at thigh-burning velocities.

In cooler conditions, wind would zip through those side panels and over cool you, but in summer it seems just right. The cut is slim and neat and the material feels soft, flexible and stretchy - it's a pleasure to wear, a bit like a very light fleece but with much more weather protection. It's nice to have handwarmer pockets too and they're well sited above waist belt and harness level and will even take an OS map.

Not only is the Powershield effectively windproof, it's also extremely water resistant and shrugs off light rain and, we'd guess, snow.

What else? Well, it has a hood with an elasticated drawcord volume adjuster to the rear and remarkably it's one of the few soft shell hoods we've encountered that will fit over a climbing helmet, but also has enough adjustment to work reasonably well without though before adjustment it does do a nice monk's cowl impersonation...

What it means is that if it does start to rain, you can protect your head instantly, just as you would with a hardshell in fact, which surely is what it's all about.

A couple of minor quibbles - the cuffs don't quite clear even our un-honed forearms and the silver bottom housing of the main zip sort of looks odd when everything else is either red or black.

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Initial Verdict

So far we're really liking the Astron Hoody. Great fabric, really comfortable to wear and a nice balance between weather protection and breathability. And it looks good too. If you think of it as having the wear comfort of a very light fleece with added super powers, then you won't go far wrong. Very nice indeed and wearable up to the point where the heavens really open.

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Great fabric, good balance between protection and breathability, hood works. Cuffs a little tight if you want tull elbow height -rolling potential.

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Mountain Equipment web site

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