What's It For?
Updated for 2009, the Hydrogen Jacket is part of The North Face's lightweight Flight series and aimed at fast-moving, lightweight enthusiasts like runners, bikers, minimalist climbers and lightpackers. It's aimed at anyone looking for a tiny, light, windproof jacket.
The Techy Bits
Lightweight kit is generally about leaving weight-adding features out, but there's some interesting stuff going on with the Hydrogen - the fabric is a lightweight Nylon but with a microscopically thin 'kiss coat' of PU to add weather resistance.
Other neat touches include underarm mesh panels for improved venting and strange little buckle and loop fasteners at the hem allowing you to stow the jacket in a rolled-up sausage shape. Not sure about those.
How It Performed
First, the Hydrogen is ridiculously light at just 82 grammes for a men's medium, it scrunches into a ball the size of an apple and really is ridiculously light and small. Even then, thanks to the fabric, it doesn't have the translucent filmy feel of some lightweight kit and while we don't expect heavy duty durability from it, we suspect it may be tougher than you think.
Fit is medium rather than skin tight. One gripe is that the hem is merely elasticated, so if you're on the slim side, you might pine for some sort of adjustment. It could also use a more pronounced drop-tail for running and biking use. That said, we found it reasonably breathable, windproof and also surprisingly water resistant for such a thin fabric.
The underarm mesh panels aren't really big enough to make a massive venting impact and we'd be interested to see how well it worked with a full mesh back like the vest equivalent as we did get warm when working hard.
Mostly though, it comes back to the weight and pack size coupled to decent weather protection, none of which we can argue with.
Initial Verdict
Incredibly light and compact but still surprisingly weather resistant. And it even has a pocket. We'd prefer and adjustable hem at the expense of a few extra grammes, but for minimalists, it's it's hard to fault.
Buy if... you want a really, really, really light windproof that will also shed the odd shower surprisingly well. Probably not at its best with regular pack use though.
