Macpac Prophet Jacket Review

[mattyc25]

Well I have seen a lot of discussion about Macpac and their products and as a recent first time user I thought I would put my review on here of the Macpac Prophet jacket.

First note I am not affiliated with Blacksheep or any other person from Macpac nor do I even know them outside of reading their posts on this forum, I have no interest in Macpac whatsoever and this is actually the first Macpac product I have ever owned.

I needed a new alpine jacket for a trip to Mount Bogong and for a NZ mountaineering course I am going to do. My requirements were the same as everyone else really, waterproof, effectively windproof, breathable etc. Fit was very important to me, I wanted something slim fitting and something that was not too long that would not be in the way of ropes, harness etc. To be honest I had never really considered the Macpac stuff and I pretty much had decided (before trying anything on) that I would end up getting a Lowe Alpine jacket. Anyway I tried an OR jacket with full side zips that fitted terribly, then I tried the Macpac. The fit was a revelation, easily the best fitting hardshell I had ever worn. But I did not buy it immediately as I kept hunting around, and tried on the Lowe Alpine. No matter what jacket I tried the Macpac fitted the best and I liked the pocket configuration and the hood so I decided to get it. Now take note it is a fairly slim fit, which I like but if you wanted to allow for a lot of layers under it it might be a challenge to fit them all in. On this trip I wore 2 thermal layers and a power stretch and was fine. I have tried my mountain hardwear monkey man jacket underneath though and that made it too tight, that is a massive thick fleece though.

Well the Brisbane store sold out and it was a total chore getting the jacket with no-one responding to emails at head office etc. The guy in Brisbane was awesome and kept following up but he just didn’t have any stock. Apparently they had issues with the tape unglueing on a small % of jackets so that caused supply issues. Anyway eventually got a jacket from head office.

Bogong put on some awesome weather for hard shell testing as it rained pretty much as soon as we started out from Camp Creek Gap. We were walking from camp creek picnic ground, up Eskdale Spur and camping near the summit ridge, a pretty decent climb with packs on. Anyway the jacket was on quickly and as expected it kept me dry on the way up. One thing I did find pretty annoying is that the zip has a small storm flap near the top where it zips up under your chin. The little flap always gets caught in the zip and gets in the way, very annoying but really a minor thing.

Once we got to near Eskdale Spur the hike gets quite a bit steeper so I thought this would be a good test for eVent’s famed breathability. Well I was hoping that it would be like wearing a t-shirt and I wouldn’t get hot at all. But after a little while of booting uphill I did start to get pretty warm. I was ready to write off the fabric as pretty much the same as Gore-Tex when the weirdest thing happened, I didn’t get any hotter. Despite continued pushing uphill with a heavy pack I didn’t overheat. Sure I was warm but normally with other fabrics I get hotter and hotter until I can’t stand it. eVent definitely breathed better and my temp stabilised.

We camped overnight near the summit and went wandering around the next day in terrible conditions. High winds, snow, sleet the whole shebang. Stayed dry and didn’t feel the wind in the jacket. Now onto one of the best things about the jacket, the hood. The hood is simply awesome. At times I had to feel the top of my head to make sure I had it on, you don’t even notice it. It does not intrude on your vision at all, in fact when properly adjusted I could not even see it. But it still does an awesome job of protecting you from the elements. Even my mate who loves his Lowe Alpine jacket commented on how good the hood looked. It has a stiff brim, not wire which I like heaps better, one thing less to adjust. And by luck or design the hood has a great habit of kind of closing itself when you take the hood off but leave the jacket on, so when you put it back on the hood is not full of water/snow. The bad things about the hood is the hood adjust at the back is very small to save weight I assume, but I couldn’t adjust it with gloves on which was a pain. Also to take the hood on or off the top of the jacket has to be unzipped to my neck, which is also a pain when you have poles etc in your hands but want the hood on/off but the jacket is done up.

On the way down it poured and poured snow continuously on us for 1 hour while we packed up camp and then for 3 hours we had snow/sleet/rain as we made the trip back to the car. I stayed relatively dry inside, just got wet on the cuffs and a bit inside the neck from water running in from my face. That happens with every jacket I have tried, overall the jacket kept me nice and dry and I was a perfect temp on the way down.

Overall I am well pleased and would recommend the jacket to anyone. Hard to comment on durability as I have only used it once.

The good:
Awesome fit
Weatherproof design, waterproof zips + external storm flap.
Very well designed
Nice and light
Fantastic hood- fits well, protects well, closes itself when not in use
Good handy large pockets
Best breathing jacket I have used

The bad:
Slim fit does not allow alot of room for lots of layers (eg thick fleece) does not bother me for my use though.
Hood adjust on back of head impossible to use with gloves (too small)
Internal storm flap near chin gets caught in zip when doing jacket up
Little rubber zipper pull is hard to use with gloves, thinking of tying a little knotted string on or something.
Have to undo top of jacket to take hood on/off
Internal mesh pocket a bit small and the way it is designed things could fall out

[Nuts]

Hi mattyc25, welcome to the forum, good review, thanks.

[Ent]

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[Tony]

Hi mattyc25,

For once I agree with Brett, great review, well done and welcome to BA.

Tony

[ninjapuppet]

Hi matty,

sorry if i missed it but how much was the jacket again?
I dont have an eVent jacket but my eVent bivy does an awesom job of keeping water out so i bet your jacket would do its job well too!

[nickL]

hi matty

great review - any pics of you in action with it on

welcome

nick

[mattyc25]

Thanks for all the warm welcomes.

Ninjapuppet I got the jacket on special for $480 but I had to sign up to the Macpac club thingy, which was free.

Jacket in action.

[Ent]

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[blacksheep]

Thank you for your feedback and the review, this has been shared with the design team .
Your pics remind me of a climbing trip to the falls at blue lake a few years ago.. we only got 1km or 2km above the top of Crackenback when the weather stopped us in our tracks. 3 days playing chess in snowcaves, no climbing, and yet only 15mins ski down to the pubs at Thredo but no desire to get out in the weather...good times
I'm just back form 6 weeks of biking in Canada and USA. More than once I used my eVent jacket (macpac traverse) on wet days in Alberta, and I still get amazed with how well this fabric works.
cheers

[mattyc25]

***This is an update on my review from August***

Well the jacket got a bit more of a workout after a 9 day mountaineering trip to New Zealand. The conditions varied from pretty cold and windy to boiling hot and sunny on the glacier so the jacket was on and off quite a few times. Things I noticed:

Breathability: Alot has been said about this fabric, and I was pretty impressed when using the jacket in Australia but I was even more impressed in NZ. Coming back to the hut from a climb across the glacier, both the guide and my mate had to remove their hard shells as they were boiling hot. I was happy to keep going and had not overheated yet, which is unusual for me. I certainly was feeling the heat from the sun/glacier but the jacket was breathing so well I had not really thought about it, which is a good sign. Super impressed with eVent, won't go back to any of the other fabrics in their current formats. If I lost my jacket tomorrow I would definately buy another eVent jacket.

Windproofness: The jacket felt just as windproof as every other hard shell that I have used, felt no wind under it, even when standing near helicopters. As expected the jacket was totally windproof, or at least felt that way.

Waterproofness: Didn't really test this in NZ as it was very dry, jacket did get a thorough test in Oz so I know it is weatherproof.

Fit and Usability: The fit for general glacier travel was great, and for climbing/ice climbing it was also fantastic. Didn't pull up when I was reaching for hand holds and didn't shift around too much at all. The jacket was long enough to be tucked under my harness but short enough that it did not get in the way. The pockets were great for gloves, pro, etc, as they are nice and big. The hood was a feature again as it just fits so well. I wore the hood with a helmet this time and it still fitted great, did not even notice it was on most of the time. My Patagonia softshell has a hood that fits awesome with a helmet, but it useless when not wearing one. The Prophet was slightly tighter with a helmet on than the Patagonia but then still fits great without a helmet so is a much better hood overall than the Patagonia. The main zip was a bit of a pain with gloves on, the small rubber zipper needs to be alot bigger or have some cord attached or something as it is annoying with gloves on.

Overall the jacket is great, best hardshell I have owned or used easily. Thinking of buying another one just in case they change the design before this one wears out! Highly recommend.

[Bluegum Mic]

Hi matty c.

Great review and thanks for sharing. I just wanted to say I bought this jacket yesterday (womens) and after a nice early morning walk this morning my first impressions are I love it. Whilst it's a slightly cooler day here in Sydney (mid low 20s) it's still muggy and we got a few good showers. I have already noticed a difference when walking up the steeper sections (I live near galston gorge so a few good places to build up a quick sweat) and it definitely breathes better than any other shell I've had. I agree the pockets are in great spots and the hood is very versatile and non obtrusive.

If you were wanting to grab another I'd swoop quickly as they've got them on sale clearing last years colours ready for this years stock. I picked mine up for $350 yesterday and am chuffed. I'll be sure to add some more comments soon as I'm walking weekly atm (mostly local around syd & blue mountains) then I'm off down the snowies at the end of march. Can't wait to put it through it's paces!

Cheers

Mic

[teejaay]

This is my little spin on this jacket.

I bought my Macpac prophet jacket at start of 2010 to use it as a rain jacket for my daily 20 min bicycle commute to my work place. This year I noticed that the material underneath the hood has been separating itself into 3 layers and the middle layer, I guess the membrane, is torn from the center to the outsides. The jacket is made up of 2 materials one which is used for 80% of all surface area which seems very durable and didn't give me any problems what so ever, but the material used at the neck seems to not fit the high quality expectations you have from Macpac products. This material is a quite soft very flexible fabric, pretty much like nylon and from my point of view not suitable for a $600 rain jacket.
So I brought it to the shop where I bought it. First I spoke to a sales assistant who was telling me that he has seen this kind of problem before but he forwarded me to the store manager who usually deals with warranty cases. The jacket has been send the repair/assessment center (third party company paid by Macpac ) and came back with a strange result. Apparently I haven't washed the jacket enough, sweat and other containments have damaged the jacket so much that the material broke. I do understand that washing improves the performance in terms of water resistance and breathability, but that it prevents a material to fall apart .. that is beyond me.

Ok let's put this in perspective.
I washed it regularly around every 2 - 3 months of use. I didn't wash it right before it was send the assessment center.
I used it about an hour every day when it was raining or a little colder, which is in Sydney the spring/autumn period (winter not much at all because it doesn't have any insulation).
The neck part is the least used part of the jacket, only used while there was a shower. It also has barely contact to skin or hair. I would understand if the arms or shoulder parts would show signs of wear but that's simply not the case.
Lets do some math to illustrate the issue (numbers are for a year). If I used it 2/3 of the year 1h a day with a 10% chance of rain during the time I was on the bike then I used the hood 24h/year. Count down 4 times washing then the hood has been washed every 6h of usage. I think this is a reasonable amount of care for such an unused part of the jacket.

The thing which makes me angry is the fact that the the new prophet jacket hasn't changed a lot, it has 2 more pockets, but the one big thing which has changed is exactly the neck part which is broken on my jacket. Why would you change something if there is no problem with it?

Apart from this apparent issue I am very happy with the overall performance of the jacket, but because of this issue (also includes the service/warranty handling) I can not recommend this jacket or Macpac at all.

Best regards Thomas

[tasadam]

The jacket has been send the repair/assessment center (third party company paid by Macpac )

Apart from this apparent issue I am very happy with the overall performance of the jacket, but because of this issue (also includes the service/warranty handling) I can not recommend this jacket or Macpac at all.

Best regards Thomas

You are dissatisfied with Macpac for two reasons, yet there is a possibility that Macpac themselves have not been contacted about it by this third party repairer. Sure, the repairer was empowered by Macpac. But now that Macpac have their own stores, have you tried talking to them directly?

[Strider]

The jacket has been send the repair/assessment center (third party company paid by Macpac )

Apart from this apparent issue I am very happy with the overall performance of the jacket, but because of this issue (also includes the service/warranty handling) I can not recommend this jacket or Macpac at all.

Best regards Thomas

You are dissatisfied with Macpac for two reasons, yet there is a possibility that Macpac themselves have not been contacted about it by this third party repairer. Sure, the repairer was empowered by Macpac. But now that Macpac have their own stores, have you tried talking to them directly?

If macpac are paying for the repair, one might presume they were initially consulted.

[teejaay]

I went to the store with this issue and they send it the assessment center. They did not repair the jacket or did anything to keep me as a customer. I was also in contact with someone from macpac directly but they just consulted the store and told me the same thing. Its very disappointing.

[Strider]

Why is it disappointing? You had an issue and the store has sent it away to be looked at. Sounds like you got good service to me.

[matagi]

Presumably the disappointment stems from the fact that the explanation for the failure does not match the reality of how the jacket is worn.

[teejaay]

Well its disappointing that macpac didn't even offer me a repair service, which I would have paid but no nothing. I believe that this issue is a material fault, the fact that they have replaced the described part of new prophet model with much stronger material smells, and that is why I am disappointed. I have other macpac products and have been very happy with them but this incident makes me not want to buy macpac again. Btw the store where I bought the jacket is the official macpac store in Kent st Sydney.

[wayno]

the new model amazed me, its got cordura like weight material in reinforced areas. can't think of another alpine jacket with such heavyweight material like it, its increased its weight by hundreds of grams. you'd have to get a motorbike jacket to find anything made or more heavy material... so why would you upgrade the fabric so much if you hadnt had major negative feedback about the jacket..
nz mountains re full of broken sharp edged jagged rocks, not to mention ice... any thin alpine jacket wouldnt last long...

[blacksheep]

Sounds like you have got some poor service- stick to your guns, seems like you are in the right.