The "holy grail" of outdoor outerwear is a jacket and pants that are stretchy and quiet, completely protect you from the wind and all precipitation, yet breathes perfectly preventing you from getting wet from your own perspiration.
You can approach this from either direction...ie you can try to make waterproof stuff more breatheable, OR you can try to make breatheable stuff more water-resistant. But so far, no one has managed to do both perfectly.
Softshells simply approach this from the perspective of 90%...ie 90% of the time it's not pouring rain, and 90% of the time we arent sprinting uphill at max aerobic capacity. Yes, there are exceptions in climate (SE AK) and activity (nordic skiing, mtn running, etc), but for most of us a garment that functions really well for that 90% of the time when we're putting out moderate heat output and the weather is somewhere between "clear/windy" and "very light precip", nothing combines breatheability with light to moderate weather protection better than a stretch woven softshell. And yes, even though Im a fan it could be redundant for a backpack hunter that still needs to bring the rain gear.
This is what I consider a softshell: https://www.kuiu.com/products/attac...BHoB4upOW0f79IBBEB0aIYSnZwCHxtuBoCJh4QAvD_BwE The softshell jackets I really like are all made of fabric like this--they rely on a DWR and a tightly woven fabric to shed very light moisture (on the order of a short drizzle, light snow, light frost or snow on branches, etc), they cut maybe 50% of the wind, but they are exceptionally breatheable. And, they are very durable in brush, they stretch so they dont need to be hugely oversized, and you can layer up or down to wear them in about any temp.
I agree on the laminated softshell fabrics like windstopper and similar--to me those are like "it's not waterproof, but at least it's bulky and doesnt breathe".
@dreamingWest Grid fleece is just old-school fleece with air pockets built-in--you can get it to be a little lighter for the same warmth, or a little warmer for the same weight/bulk. Are you referring to a fleece with a harder face fabric?
Those guide jackets are a bonded softshell--its a stretch/woven outer face, glued to a fleece liner--the glue itself functions sort of like a laminate in that it blocks some wind. If cheap glues are used it functions like a plastic bag and sucks, Toray is a pretty legit company so I imagine the fabric used in that piece the bonding agent is either intermittent or its porous so there is some breatheability. Depending, that's going to be somewhere on the spectrum between a stretch-woven softshell and a laminated softshell.
You can approach this from either direction...ie you can try to make waterproof stuff more breatheable, OR you can try to make breatheable stuff more water-resistant. But so far, no one has managed to do both perfectly.
Softshells simply approach this from the perspective of 90%...ie 90% of the time it's not pouring rain, and 90% of the time we arent sprinting uphill at max aerobic capacity. Yes, there are exceptions in climate (SE AK) and activity (nordic skiing, mtn running, etc), but for most of us a garment that functions really well for that 90% of the time when we're putting out moderate heat output and the weather is somewhere between "clear/windy" and "very light precip", nothing combines breatheability with light to moderate weather protection better than a stretch woven softshell. And yes, even though Im a fan it could be redundant for a backpack hunter that still needs to bring the rain gear.
This is what I consider a softshell: https://www.kuiu.com/products/attac...BHoB4upOW0f79IBBEB0aIYSnZwCHxtuBoCJh4QAvD_BwE The softshell jackets I really like are all made of fabric like this--they rely on a DWR and a tightly woven fabric to shed very light moisture (on the order of a short drizzle, light snow, light frost or snow on branches, etc), they cut maybe 50% of the wind, but they are exceptionally breatheable. And, they are very durable in brush, they stretch so they dont need to be hugely oversized, and you can layer up or down to wear them in about any temp.
I agree on the laminated softshell fabrics like windstopper and similar--to me those are like "it's not waterproof, but at least it's bulky and doesnt breathe".
@dreamingWest Grid fleece is just old-school fleece with air pockets built-in--you can get it to be a little lighter for the same warmth, or a little warmer for the same weight/bulk. Are you referring to a fleece with a harder face fabric?
Those guide jackets are a bonded softshell--its a stretch/woven outer face, glued to a fleece liner--the glue itself functions sort of like a laminate in that it blocks some wind. If cheap glues are used it functions like a plastic bag and sucks, Toray is a pretty legit company so I imagine the fabric used in that piece the bonding agent is either intermittent or its porous so there is some breatheability. Depending, that's going to be somewhere on the spectrum between a stretch-woven softshell and a laminated softshell.
Last edited:
