Mammut Kento HS Hooded Jacket

Why pay for a Mercedes when a Toyota will do? That’s the easy comparison after testing this full-featured rain shell, which has the protection and durability to serve as a year-round jacket. The 2.5-layer fabric kept us dry through three straight days of rain near Moab, Utah. It was aided by adjustable cuffs that angle slightly over the back of the hand, a three-way adjustable, brimmed hood that cinches tightly over the face (and fits a helmet), and a PFC-free DWR. The durability of the Kento’s 40-denier nylon also wowed one tester: “I squeezed through tight cracks and I scrambled slot canyons in Arches National Park’s Fiery Furnace, and it never abraded,” he says. But if you need the best breathability and lowest weight, you might want to splurge on that Mercedes after all. We steamed up with temps in the 40s (although 10-inch pit zips helped keep things out of sauna territory), and the Kento is not super light or packable (it’s a hair under a pound and packs down to the size of half a loaf of bread).