User Review: The North Face Baltoro Jacket

Last year, while ice climbing at night with Dan Osman above Emerald Bay in South Lake Tahoe, we swapped his Baltoro, affectionately tagged "The Sleeping Bag," as a belay jacket. While belaying in the Baltoro, you could sit perfectly still in the biting wind for a long pitch, the air temp plummeting as midnight approached, and you might as well have been in the tropics. Toasty.

I've got a Himalayan Parka coming in the mail-- I'll see how it performs this winter. A little longer than the Baltoro, the Himalayan promises to be a furnace.

I've also got nothing but good to say about my Kichatna Jacket, worn over two seasons in conditions varying from vertical ice to an ascent of Shasta via the Hotlum Glacier. Make sure with any of these coats that you get them roomy enough, with layers, to allow complete arm rotation without binding.

Climb safe.