"What Our Gearhead® Experts Are Saying:""I took the Alpine Guide GTX Performance Jacket on a technical mixed route in early spring when the weather was genuinely unpredictable and it handled everything without hesitation. The three-point hood adjustment kept it locked down over my helmet through wind and spindrift on the upper pitches, and the underarm vents saved me on the long approach when I was generating serious heat under a loaded pack. This is the jacket I trust when conditions are not going to cooperate.""Above the bergschrund the wind picks up fast and the sky stops giving you useful information. On routes like that, the jacket on your back is not a comfort item, it is a critical piece of the system, and the La Sportiva Alpine Guide GTX Performance Jacket was built with exactly that reality in mind. Designed around the demands of working alpine guides and serious mountaineers, this is a hardshell engineered for year-round technical use where the consequences of gear failure are real. La Sportiva constructed this jacket around GORE-TEX® Performance ePE 3L, a PFC-free membrane that delivers a 28,000mm waterproof rating and a RET value of 13, meaning it sheds rain and spindrift without trapping the heat generated by hard technical climbing. Articulated sleeves move with the body through overhanging cruxes and full-extension reaches on steep terrain, while underarm zip vents allow rapid heat dumping on the approach before conditions demand the jacket be fully sealed. The double-collar design lets you clip the helmet-compatible hood away cleanly when it is not needed and deploy it fast when it is, with three adjustment points to lock it in position over a helmet. An internal snow guard gaiter with a silicone grip strip seals out spindrift from below, and five total pockets including two hand pockets accessible under a harness and a climbing pack keep essentials within reach at every stage of the route. At 14. 1oz, the Alpine Guide GTX Performance Jacket packs li.."