Review: The North Face Bolt Polartec Jacket

I think this jacket is for a wide variety of outdoor practitioners. The North Face say it’s for hiking, and it would perform well for that. I used it climbing and again it was a perfect layer. No reason why you couldn’t use it for lots of outdoor activities and still be totally happy with its performance.

The jacket was slightly unappealing to me in its aesthetics on first look. This is just a personal preference of course, I didn’t really like the styling of the black panels across the shoulders and upper arms. But once wearing it, I was won over. It feels really light and thin and stretchy, but is warm and cosy. When climbing in it I didn’t overheat or get sweaty (the stress of avoiding territorial fulmars that projectile vomit at you was enough to get me a bit clammy!), and on belays when standing still and waiting, the longer sleeves and full length zip, and thumb holes, were enough to just ‘batten down the hatches’ slightly to keep me warm. 

I never noticed the jacket while climbing, totally unencumbered freedom of movement no matter how gymnastic the climbing moves felt (not that gymnastic truth be told). 

This is the sort of jacket you’ll wear all year long, in all but the extremes of summer and winter. Actually even in the extremes of winter, coupled with a hardshell and warm base layer and keeping moving, it would still be a great part of a layering system. If I haven’t already said it before (I have), this is a brilliant fabric, allied to a functional design that really achieves what it set out to.