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World’s Lightest Down Jacket For 2015

There’s a good chance you haven’t heard of either Nordisk or its sister firm Yeti, but the Danish outdoor specialist produces some of the lights down sleeping bags and jackets out there as well as some super-light tents including one reckoned to be the lightest in the world.

The good news is that both brands are available in the UK and, for next spring 2015, will be selling both the claimed world’s lightest down jacket, the Yeti Strato and the world’s lightest three-season synthetic sleeping bag, the Nordisk Oscar.

You’ll have to forgive us if we don’t seem totally on the ball as regards both, we saw the guys at the butt-end of this year’s OutDoor trade show with both parties, erm, flagging…

Yeti Strato – World’s Lightest Down Jacket

Obviously what you’re wondering is ‘how light is it?’ The answer is a claimed 165g for a distinctive-looking, summer-friendly – yes, we did say that – down jacket using ultra high-spec components.

Visually it’s just a little bit different thanks to unusual ‘cross-cross’ down channels. The fabric is called Next to Nothing and it’s ultra-lighweight, 19 g/m2 if you want to get technical. Meanwhile the fill is Yet’s own 900+ European pure white goose down, pretty much the highest-lofting down it’s possible to obtain.

Pocket Packable

Theres no hood, but you do get proper hand pockets, elasticated hem and cuffs and a sturdy, it says here, full-length zip. It all packs away into one of its own pockets for easy stashing and we’d hope that the warmth, given the quality of the components, would be surprisingly decent, which isn’t always the case with, say, micro-baffled down jackets.

As a side note, Yeti’s 280g Fever Zero is reckoned to be the world’s lightest and has just won a Red Dot Design award for design excellence.

Nordisk Oscar – World’s lightest synthetic three-season sleeping bag

New from sister brand Nordisk is the Oscar, a three-season synthetic bag weighing bang on 500g and claimed to be the world’s lightest in its class. It might sound like an Ikea side table, but Oscar is actually a sub-500g synthetic bag with a claimed temperature range of -6˚C up to +10˚C.

It uses a barking light 7-denier fabric with rip-stop construction and a nice soft feel along with optimised fill. The top of the bag uses two layers of insulation, while the less crucial underside has just a single one. Meanwhile the footbox gets no fewer than three layers of the fibre as they’re the first area of the body to get cold.

Recycled Pop Bottles

The fill is called ThermoDry ECO and made from recycled PET, plastic drinks bottles in other words. It’s a hollow fibre to trap maximum air for its weight and it’s reckoned to be both durable and capable of being washed multiple times.

Finally there’s a half-length, double-ended central zip for venting versatility and a hood with drawcord adjustment. If it lives up to its rating, it should be an impressive bit of kit for anyone after a properly light synthetic bag.

A 1500g Two Person Tent

Also up its sleeve, Nordisk has the new Halland II LW, a two-person tunnel tent weighing just 1500g – if you want extreme lightness check out the Telemark 2, the world’s lightest two-person tent – which is a two-layer design with foamy porch and plenty of internal space.

To put that in perspective, most similar tunnels will weigh around a kilo more and the tent has been wind tunnel-honed to withstand gale-force winds despite using light fabrics including a siliconised 10D rip-stop Nylon fly sheet with a tear strength of 8kg and the latest generation of DAC aluminium Featherlite NFL poles.

In other words, on paper at least, you can have your cake and eat it. Light but also relatively roomy and tough. Or that’s the claim. There’s other stuff in the range too including an organic teepee aimed at, erm, eco-aware glampers, gawd bless ’em…