For those really cold days in very cold places the Helly Hansen Patrol Puffy Insulated Jacket is your friend to keep you warm, writes Mike Gormley.
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Helly Hansen are well known for their cold climate clothing, and this is one of those garments. Chosen for my recent trip south into Patagonia and the Antarctic, I can safely say it was a very worthy garment to take up some of my limited packing space.
The Puffy is a fully functional jacket for hard use in challenging places. It takes just a few seconds after putting this on to feel the benefits and to be looking forward to getting out there into the cold. Fabrics, a lot which are recycled, are well chosen for durability and above all to offer the user warmth when they need it. The outer layer is hard wearing ripstop and deeper down you have Primaloft Black Eco to keep you cosy. Although not classed as waterproof is it certainly very resistant to a drop of rain or wet snow and spray with its additional DWR treatment. This I got to prove on a good few occasions, mostly with wet mushy snow and sea spray.
The Patrol Puffy is aptly named and fairly bulky, as it has to be. It is a comfortable to wear jacket with many features you would expect in a high end garment such as this. It has a full-time fitted, and very good, hood of matching features to the main jacket. This has, of course, got drawcords and a rear volume adjuster. The lower hem of this quite long jacket has no hem drawcord, but I never found this a issue.
¤ All closed up to keep warm and note the quite long cut of this jacket which was very welcome [©JG]
¤ The large patch pockets are very handy and can easily carry a hot drinks flask [©JG]
The arms, however, are well catered for. The cuffs have what one might call extending knitted close-fitting ‘windcheater’ cuffs that can be pulled out to at least part cover the hands or overlap gloves. The outer side of the lower arms have nifty fold-over reflective strips so these can be in use or just folded up and out of sight. On the top of the shoulders is a reinforced Cordura strip to protect against abrasion when carrying heavy loads in rucksacks and so on. A good idea this and a bit less slippy than the base material.
¤ Taking advantage of local cover trying to view the penguins ~ the long back again coming into its own [©JG]
HH do pockets well, as you will also see on an upcoming review on the Arctic Jacket. For the Patrol Puffy we have external chest pockets of good useable size and with protected zips. On each side at the waist, we have what HH call double entry pockets. To me this says single pocket with two ways to access them. In reality, it is much better than this. These are good size ‘cargo’ pockets with fold over and press stud closures. Behind these are two ‘hand warmer’ pockets which also have vertical press stud closures. These are just great when out in the cold especially if not able to wear gloves as they are in just the right place to put your hands for a quick warm-up. I find them especially good as I am often taking photos or using binos, so gloves are a hindrance, and these pockets are a great way to give the hands quick warm up.
This jacket has a ‘generous’ fit to allow for space for other layers underneath so giving you a flexible layering system for when conditions are variable. On the back is what HH say is a hanging loop with the HH brand name.
¤ Behind the side pockets there are hand warmer pockets which as extremely useful and also have press stud closures [©MG]
My jacket is Terrazzo and there are several other colour combinations to choose from. Dare I say it, but I look forward to cold days again so I have an excuse to get this out and wear it!
[images © Jean or Mike Gormley]
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