Longtime readers of the blog know that you could describe me as obsessive when it comes to finding great cold weather gear. I developed Reynauds in my early 20s, and if I let my fingers and toes go numb long enough, I can sometimes pass out when the blood comes back to them.
After eight years of wearing the same outfit, my cold weather gear finally changed this year and man, some of these pieces are too great not to share with everyone. So here's the first in a three part series about what's new:
I've found the holy grail of winter weather barn coats.
I had to get a new one this year, and I landed on the Carhartt Montana Puffer Coat - Sherpa Lined. On Carhartt's warmth scale, it's a maxed out "4 - Extreme Warmth Rating". For comparison, the canvas coats you usually think of when you think Carhartt are a "3 - Warmest Rating".
Guys, I almost returned this coat. It's TOO WARM at temps above 15F. It's too warm to wear a scarf with, too warm to wear a vest with. Too warm for a single Smartwool base layer. Way too warm to wear my Underarmour 4.0 with. I sweat no matter what I wear under it even though my body doesn't handle cold well at all. You put your hands in the pockets and they are immediately WARM. It's remarkable, and I can't get over it.
Just as a fun experiment for this post, I did an hour of feeding, turnout and stalls in just a t-shirt and this coat when it was 18F this morning, and I was sweating! I have never felt anything like it before, and I'm truly in awe of it.
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| The weather this morning |
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| How I dressed for it |
Other upsides to this coat are:
- Extremely durable water-resistant and windproof outer layer. Yes, it's a puffer coat, but it's a puffer coat that takes the abuse of farm work no problem.
- Great pockets - big, warm pockets (with zippers) for jamming your gloved hands into, snap pockets to drop things into, a nice big cell phone pocket on the chest, and an easy-to-access massive mesh pocket on the inside.
- Internal wrist cuffs - you can't see or feel them, but you can feel that the cold isn't getting into the sleeve
- It's lightweight and doesn't restrict my movement in any noticeable way.
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| Giant mesh pocket |
It does have some downsides:
- It's massive and not at all attractive. Imagine what the Michelin Man would look like if he had all the curves of a cereal box. That's what you'll look like wearing it.
- The zipper sucks. It's plastic and sometimes gets stuck. I can already tell I'm going to be making a trip to the seamstress this summer to get it replaced with a metal one.
- The hood is not removable. This really bothered me at first and I felt like it was constantly hitting me in the back of the head, but I don't notice that as much now - not sure if the hood relaxed as I wore it, or if I'm so grateful to be warm that I don't care. I did have to get a different winter hat to fit under the sherpa-lined hood - more on that in another gear review post.
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| Sexy, it is not |
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| Closeup of the sherpa lining in the hood and body of the coat |
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