The term “overbuilt” is one of those marketing-speak monikers that gets thrown around a lot these days when talking about outdoor gear. It’s a fancy way of saying that said gear’s designers prioritize things like durability and performance over adhering to established pricing conventions for a given product in a given class. In truth, there are only a handful of companies that overbuild their gear. Relative newcomer (a descriptor we’re going to shortly have to abandon using) and Bozeman-based Skwala Fishing is one of those companies, and its latest offering, the new Skwala RS Outpost Jacket is no exception.
Overbuilt gear comes with side effects, some welcome and some not. Manufacturers get longer and more expensive R&D cycles and heftier MSRPs mean a higher barrier to entry for customers. But, at the end of their rainbow are bigger margins and profits, or so the hope goes. Consumers get higher prices, which no one gets excited about, but get gear that works better and lasts longer (and thus needs to be replaced less often) than less expensive competitors. Or, again, so the hope goes.
Skwala’s new RS Outpost Jacket is, at least on paper, a serious people of cold-weather gear, featuring not just a wind- and weather-blocking and heat-trapping design, but which totes along a few innovative features that might just be difference makers for anglers standing waist deep in near-freezing water while howling wind blasts week-old snow and ice off the riverbank and whips it up into a face-stinging frenzy.
Here's a first look.
Heat Trapping
The most notable design spec that will leap out at gear nerds, people who spend their day working inside the offices of an outdoor gear brand, or anyone else that uses terms like “textile” and “face fabric” without blushing is the 150g of Toray® 3DeFX+™ spiral insulation that’s packet into the RS Outpost. We’ve twiced lauded Skwala’s Fusion 3/2 Puffy for how well it insulates (amongst other things). For frame of reference, the 3/2 Puffy has 90g of the same insulation. The RS Outpost’s 150g should offer serious warmth on the water when it's sorely needed.
Stretch
There’s not too much to say here, really. Skwala makes stretch and movement a cornerstone of all its apparel and the same is true here. The 3DeFX+™ spiral insulation mentioned above wasn’t only designed for its insulative properties, it was also designed by Toray for stretch (imparted largely by its spiral fibers).
That same stretch is found throughout the RS Outpost Jacket — in its wicking layer, it’s face fabric (see?), and so on.
Blocking
In addition to featuring 4-way stretch, just mentioned above, the outer shell of the RS Outpost is meant to keep the elements at bay. A Nylon PrimeFlex stretch-woven face textile combines with a waterproof but breathable Toray® Entrant® microporous laminate and DWR water-repellent finish to keep water and wind out and (most) of your body heat in.
Features
You’ll find all the features you’d expect on a high-end wading jacket on the RS Outpost. Big gear pockets, water-resistant zippers, hand-warmer pockets, lock-down adjustable cuffs, and so on. One thing you won’t find on other jackets however, is the Outpost’s innovative new pass-through pockets. If you’ve done any serious cold-weather angling, you know that on the really harsh days, hand-warmer pockets often don’t offer much of a warm up. To address this weak link, Skwala built pass-through pockets into the RS Outpost, which are designed to line up directly with the hand-warmer pockets in their RS Waders, where theoretically there is much more hand-warming body heat waiting to bring feeling back into your numb hands and fingers.
Wrapping Up
Time and field testing will offer the final word on whether Skwala’s new cold weather piece is a winner, but there’s a lot to be optimistic about. If, ultimately, the RS Outpost Jacket makes frigid days on the water easier to look forward to, longer, and more comfortable, then there will be a tremendous amount of value in that for anglers that aren’t content to let the calendar send their fly rods into hibernation.
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