High Country, I have one question on your testing,
I see you gave the Kuiu a 9 in water resistance.... What is the reason behind this score? Did the jacket fail? Did it let water through? Was the DWR not as good as the Sitka?
Good question.. Perhaps I should been a bit clearer as to my reasoning, but it got pretty darn wordy as it was! : )
The first thing I do when I get a new piece of rain gear is test the "waterproofness." Its nothing fancy, I simply use the shower in my house. Throw on some knee high rubber boots, rain paints, and a jacket. However, there is a bit of a trick to it to ensure the test is valid.
1) Wrist closure must be snug
2) Hood as snug and to the face as possible
3) Movement is key
I am pretty anal about keeping everything tightened up and very specific in my movements. Why? Well if you move wrong you can get water either in through the face opening or run up the sleeves. This ruins your test and you have wait until the jacket completely dries before testing again.
In the shower I move enough so the the entire garment gets as wet as possible. I will stand, kneel, sit, walk / run in place, and even do a few push ups now and then. The key is to test the jacket, not get yourself hot enough that you start sweating and ruin your rest. I use cold water to both save money and keep me from sweating. 10 minutes is a minimum expectation, I used 12mins 30 secs. Only because I read someone's review and they used 10.
If you really want to test go 15+. Usually if it is going to fail though, it shows up prior to 15.
With all that said, I did that test as part of my review. In testing the First Lite Stormtight, the KUIU CHugach NX, and the Sitka Dewpoint there was a noticeable difference in the face of the fabric. Both the KUIU and the First Lite have a softer face than the Sitka. As such that soft face held water vs. shed water like the Sitka. Its hard to explain, but if you look at the picture of me in the wet First Lite jacket you can see how the jacket appears soaked. It did not leak, but in contrast the Sitka fabric face shed water better. All 3 jackets dried quickly, but I felt that I needed a way to differentiate this and uses the scale to do so.
I hope that helps.
