12/22
Okay this is a great place to just recap things. Last season I used my DAS Parka a lot, it was my go to belay jacket for any ice climb, until it wasn’t.
So one day I went to pack my DAS Parka and I noticed that the jacket's fabric on the inside was starting to tear in long vertical streaks. And it didn’t take much to figure out that my harness was the culprit of this, with having hardwear on the back of the harness. And this started to grind my gears, as the DAS Parka at the end of a day is a climbing, and especially alpine climbing belay parka.
Something I brought out in my DAS Light video was that you shouldn’t have to baby a jacket that was meant to handle the situations and environments that climbing brings you. It’s great and all that they made the DAS Parka lightweight for how much insulation it packs in but I’m still on the fence on whether it was worth it to significantly cut down the strength of the shell fabric.
As for performance, it’s warm, really warm. The new style of insulation that is in the DAS Parka really shines in this more slimmed down silhouette. And just like the DAS Light the DWR on the shell is very strong, so getting caught in a little precipitation is not a big deal.
We’ll see if DAS Parka can handle this season of ice climbing, if anything happens to the jacket I’ll be sure to put my thoughts here.