Patagonia Mixed Guide Hoody - Men's Review

Part Hardshell Part Softshell
The Mixed Guide Hoody has more stretch and is more breathable than a traditional hardshell jacket. On average it’s also more durable and more water resistant than a traditional softshell jacket. The Polartec Power Shield softshell material is not windproof and, as a result, isn’t as warm as a hardshell material or a windproof softshell material. (Because heat escapes with water vapor, no significantly water resistant fabric can be both highly breathable and warm.) At the same time, the Mixed Guide Hoody’s hardshell parts make it warmer than a full softshell and allow it to be used in a slightly wider range of conditions.

The highly specialized design of hybrid jackets makes them well suited to a specific end use. In this case, the Mixed Guide Hoody’s end use is alpine climbing-- where you’re working hard (moving fast) but encounter enough dripping water to warrant hardshell materials on the shoulders and hood. This shell could also be useful skiing on a stormy day where you may want extra waterproof protection at the shoulders, which are usually the first to wet out.

Features
The Mixed Guide Hoody has two moderately sized crossover chest pockets and two hidden handwarmer pockets. The handwarmer pockets get covered by a backpack’s waistbelt or a harness, which renders them useless for many technical applications. Although the two crossover chest pockets are good for climbing and for storing things the Mixed Guide Hoody’s pocket zippers would be better if they were larger. Specifically, the zippers should be one inch closer to the main zipper, which would make the pockets larger. Adding a bellowed side and bottom, like Arcteryx does with their Alpha SV jacket, would provide even more storage. This may appear like a trivial feature, but when you’re climbing and need to stash something quickly, such as your gloves, adequately sized pockets are necessary, and the jacket comes up short in this respect.

The hood is another feature that could be improved. It ranks on the smaller side of the dozens of other hardshell and softshell jackets we’ve tested, and is not truly comfortable when worn over a helmet with the zipper fully closed. One tester found it to be restricting when looking up and to the sides. Another tester found it to be fine while looking up but restrictive when looking to the sides. A larger hood would make the jacket better for climbing.

Limitations
The Mixed Guide Hoody performs well until you add the liquid form of water. Melting snow hits the shoulders, melts, and runs down off the hardshell parts and onto the softshell parts, which also wet out. Therefore, non of our testers found it to be a substitute for a hardshell jacket and none preferred it to other softshells. It lies awkwardly in the middle and is good in theory and on paper, but rarely in practice.

This jacket also has less attention to detail than many other top-tier pieces we’ve seen from Patagonia. For example, the chest pocket zipper garages do not actually cover the zippers’ water can run into the pockets.

Best Application and Value
This jacket is deigned specifically for winter alpine climbing. Our testers don’t believe the jacket is suitable to many activities other than alpine climbing. But is it really useful or worthwhile even if this is your primary sport? We believe that for 90% of climbing applications a pure softshell or hardshell will perform better than the Mixed Guide Hoody. Hardshells can be used for everything-- they’re just not as comfortable (neither as breathable or as soft) as a softshell. The Mixed Guide Hoody could be an interesting jacket to experiment with if you have the cash to do so. Otherwise, it’s a poor value.