Montane Alpine Pro – Performance

In a nut-shell, hard to fault. The fabric’s a known quantity, light, tough and breathable with a reassuring solidity to it. The only downside is that it’s a little noisy, particularly with the hood up.

Just as significantly for a new Gore-Tex brand aiming to make a mark, the cut is excellent in our book. It’s athletic and fitted but unrestrictive at the same time and has just enough space to allow for additional winter insulation, though that’s going to depend a little on your individual build. There’s no sleeve lift, bagginess or restriction.

Hoodtastic!

Also impressive is the helmet hood. It sits neatly on a bare head and gives protection to the lower face too. And with it down, the high collar sits neatly over the chin giving reassuring extra protection even without the hood.

It’s good with a helmet too. Again moving with the head and not restricting movement. Wired peak keeps dive-bombing raindrops out of your eyes too. Just a very good hood.

The attention to detail extends to touches like the hem-adjusters, which are flat and super-easy to use, plus any hem-cord excess is tethered away from harm.

And then there’s the angled pit-zips which work well for a bit of additional cooling, though the latest Pro fabric breathes decently well anyway and we found you had to be pushing on quite hard to need extra cooling.

Finally, despite the ‘alpine’ name tag, we reckon it’s every bit at home with UK mountain walking and mountaineering as it is in the Alps. It’s happily taken everything the UK weather’s thrown at it and come back for more.

Montane Alpine Pro – Verdict

Now Montane is ‘just another Gore-Tex brand’ it was imperative for them to come up with something special to mark their new territory, and we reckon they’ve done just that with the Alpine Pro.

It’s beautifully cut, solidly made and hits the bulls-eye by combining a proper, solid, protective feel with reasonably light weight and bulk making it packable as well as wearable.

Everything on the jacket works with minimal hassle and just about the only quibble we have is whether the relatively light 40-denier fabric would cope with real sustained abuse. That aside, we reckon it’s an excellent all-round mountain jacket for anything from walking and scrambling through to full-on mountaineering.

More Information

See montane.co.uk