Rab Generator Alpine jacket - Static warmth for Scottish Winter (plus Spring and Autumn) in a lightweight package
Belay jackets are designed primarily for climbers but I’m sharing an opinion here from the perspective of an outdoor and adventure sports photographer looking for a warm jacket that’s suitable for the different activities I do (e.g. three- and four-season hillwalking and backpacking, fast-packing / running plus mountain landscape photography at relatively small altitudes).
As someone who generates lots of heat on the move, I have to wear very little clothing during my outdoor activities if I wish to maintain a comfortable temperature. (It’s been said about the polar regions of the globe that “if you sweat, you die” and I’m imagining that I’d last no longer than a few hours).
Running hot means I’m often wearing just a thin base layer in cold and windy conditions, as well as below freezing temperatures. The flip side being, when I stop, I need enough insulation to not lose all that warmth and it needs to be the right kind of insulation (i.e. synthetic) so the moisture from my body and the surrounding environment (e.g. rain. hail, snow) doesn’t affect it.
Synthetic insulated jackets, or belay jackets, are commonly classed as winter only jackets. Scotland’s maritime climate - although warmer in recent years - can be quite frigid and I’m often thankful outside the Winter season for the protection a belay-style jacket offers and the warmth they retain (such as when I’m waiting for a bus after a trail run in my local Pentland Hills). My perfect product would be one jacket that doesn’t drown me when I don’t have lots of layers on but is also big enough to fit over everything that I’d wear in Winter. My criteria in such a jacket being an optimal insulation fill of 133gm or 170gm of Primaloft Gold or equivalent insulation in the body with a water resistant shell and a hood that works without a helmet. Oh, and one that packs down well and isn’t too heavy (around 600-700gm in size Large) so I don’t mind carrying it for the majority of the year.
For a long time, I felt like I was searching for the holy grail. There’s a variety of 60gm options such as Patagonia’s Nano Puff or Micro Puff range and Rab’s Xenon Hoody but I don’t find these warm enough outside of Summer (and pairing up two means you’re carrying double the weight). Mountain Equipment’s Citadel jacket is excellent but it’s oversized and at 200gsm insulation and over 1kg in weight, it’s purely winter only. Mountain Equipment’s FitzRoy model more fits my criteria - not so much on the packability aspect - but frustratingly, until the 2024 model, it has never fitted me in the arms, plus it’s oversized. Mountain Equipment’s Prophet jacket I also liked - and I’d propose was an ideal Spring / Autumn jacket for Scotland, or the Alps - but it was also slightly too big for me and I found it best when I had the bulk of winter clothes on underneath (but then it wasn’t warm enough to be my only insulation). Haglöfs previously produced a Barrier Zone Hoody jacket with 170gm Primaloft Gold insulation which fitted the bill but the outer fabric had no water repellent properties and it soaked up moisture (it was easy however to wring out). The standard bearer in this weight of belay jacket, according to many, is Patagonia’s DAS Parka (133gm Primaloft Gold Eco with 40gm extra places) but I’ve never seen it in a store to try on and PHD’s Epsilon and Alpha models are super expensive.
Enter Rab’s Generator Alpine jacket, which is my current choice for a synthetic insulated jacket for Scottish Winter, Spring and Autumn. I’d propose it’s a great balance of all the attributes above, with 133gsm Primaloft Gold insulation (80gsm in the hood), a weight of c.600gm in size Large and a cut that fits me when I have few clothes on and also many. It’s not perfect - argh - but it’s very good and I expect I will use it until it’s worn out (or I am, whichever comes first).
What I like about the Rab Generator Alpine jacket
The warmth - Rab’s marketing pitch is the Generator Alpine jacket is their ‘most rugged belay jacket’ with 133gm per square metre ‘Primaloft Gold Insulation with Cross CoreTM’ technology in the body, 80gm hood and a “durable and weather resistant outer”. 133gm is my ‘Goldilocks’ amount of insulation and I’m picturing it to be as warm as previous jackets I’ve had with 170gm insulation, presumably due to the advances in technology. The outer blocks the wind well and it always makes me feel immediately warmer when I put it on, especially with the hood up.
The fit - I’m between size L-XL in most outdoor brands (being 6’2” and 92kg) so my jackets are usually slightly big as I have to size up. A Large Generator Alpine though fits me perfectly and it hits the mark as I can wear it over my winter layers but it also doesn’t feel like I’m wearing a sail if when I’m not wearing much underneath.
The light weight - 600gm exactly on my scales for a size Large but oddly (and I’m not complaining) it feels much lighter
What I’d like to see changed
Water resistance - The outer fabric I’ve not found to be very water resistant, as claimed, and it doesn’t take much moisture to see the Primaloft wadding underneath, which I’ve found then gets soaked fairly quickly. It doesn’t give me that bombproof feeling I had in Mountain Equipment’s Prophet jacket which used Gore Infinium. (Pairing the Rab model with a Gore Infinium shell would make for a really awesome jacket, in my view).
Alternatives
Patagonia DAS parka - Earlier models as worn by Steve House, Vince Anderson and Marko Prezelj in Pakistan (see Ice, Anarchy and the Pursuit of Madness) and Steve and Vince as part of their minimalist clothing system for Nanga Parbat’s Rupal Face.
PHD Alpha Belay Jacket - Or their Epsilon model. As indicated above, very expensive but can be custom fitted.
Mountain Equipment Fitzroy - 20gm more Primaloft Gold in the body than a previous version (120gsm in 2024) with less insulation at appropriate points elsewhere. If it fits you, I’d suggest the FitzRoy is a great choice, with the water-resistant shell adding warmth, and you can perhaps look no further. It doesn’t pack down as small as the Rab Generator Alpine - I found it slightly harder to get the air out due to the Gore Infinium shell - but it ticks most of the other boxes for me.
October 2024 - Mountain Equipment launched their Oreus insulated jacket using a brand new Aetherm™ insulation which I was interested in as it’s super light but it’s very, very (very) shiny, which in my opinion makes it aesthetically not very nice. I also found it to have a fairly tight cut compared to their other insulated jackets (it definitely wouldn’t fit over my winter clothes) and it has velcro hood adjustment at the back and not a bungee cord, which is a straight no from me for any jacket.