Mountain Equipment Latok Jacket Tested

That's not to say it's a throwback. On the contrary, Mountain Equipment's shell jackets are now among the best cut and most thoroughly designed on the market and the Latok is spot on in most areas. The jacket we tested, by the way, was in last season's DriLite Extreme, but the new version for this winter comes in 'classic' three-layer Gore-Tex. Don't let that put you off - yes, Gore's XCR is more breathable, but we'd still choose a well-designed non-XCR jacket over a badly thought-out XCR one any day.

Great Hood...

So what do you get? Apart from the very solid, dependable feel - think Volvo - the cut is excellent. Not only does it look neat, but the details work - you can reach up high without the cuffs pulling down your arms, there's no spare fabric billowing out once you put on a rucksac or harness and the big twin-chest pockets are placed carefully to be useable with both or either.

Then there's the hood. Quite simply it's the best design we've used on a shell jacket. It's big enough to accommodate a climbing helmet yet still cinches down to fit neatly without. The real clinchers though are that the one-hand operated rear tension cord sits so that the whole hood turns when your head turns. Arc'teryx have a similarly effective cut by the way. Plus there's a big stiffened peak with a long wired reinforcement that has Scottish houlie written all over it.

Bells And Whistle

The rest of the detailing is similarly good. You get long pit-zips, now with coated, water-resistant zips for simplicity and removal of excess flappage, there's a proper map pocket with bonus emergency whistle and the cuff fastening also works well giving you the choice of opening them up or cinching down using a Velcro-secured strap, again all operable with one hand. One minor point, the buckle is a little bulky, so if you're a gauntlet over the cuff kinda person, you might want to check there's enough slack in your wrist area before buying.

Anything else? The double storm flap on the main zip is Velcro-fastened using die-cut patches and, erm, that hood rolls down as well and is secured by a flap. Oh, and it's nice to see that ME has taken advantage of the water-resistant pit-zips to eliminate fiddle protective flaps, which isn't always the case.

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