Salomon Drifter Air Mid Hoodie – The Fill

Mostly the Drifter Air is fleece – the orange parts in the main pic – but the front of the chest and shoulder areas are made from blue Pertex Quantum fabric, with a light layer of PrimaLoft synthetic fill to add some strategy warmth.

The hood area is mostly fleece too, but with two wind-resistant, insulated side-panels again for some added protection. PrimaLoft’s big plus is that it continues to work reasonably well, even if it gets damp.

Salomon Drifter Air Mid Hoodie – Performance

If you think of the Drifter Air as a sort of mutant fleece on steroids, you won’t go far wrong. Effectively it’s an all-day, cold conditions, mid-layer jacket that you can use either as an outer layer, when it suits or layered under a shell when things get gnarlier.

We found it worked best in cold, dry, relatively still conditions or, if it was windy, when working hard. The windproof, insulated sections add a little additional protection compared to a similar hard face fleece without them, but most of the jacket is a lot less wind resistant, so you’re always balancing your heat output against the conditions.

We found it was often a good outer layer for ascents in cold conditions, but on flat and downhill, more exposed terrain, we sometimes had to add a wind shell or waterproof to stay comfortable.

Neat Fit

The fit’s neat and athletic, good for layering, but we’d have preferred an adjustable hem cord for better fit down below. We’d also have liked the cuffs to be a little more elastic so we could have rolled the sleeves up when trying to vent.

One plus on that front is that the jacket has a press-stud around chest level which holds it together even when the zip’s undone for venting reasons. An additional one further down would have been nice too.

Why choose this over a straight fleece or soft shell jacket? Well, the added insulated sections up the warmth slightly and add a little wind resistance, they also cope better with pack straps than standard fleece shoulders. And compared to most soft shells, it’s warmer and works better as a fleece-type, insulating mid-layer jacket.

What it isn’t, in our experience, is an alternative to a conventional down or down-type synthetic jacket. It’s simply not warm enough and doesn’t have sufficient wind resistance.