warm, snow proof coat

[kotatsuneko]

am in the market for a good long lasting coat/jacket as I may be going to see the folks for new years.

can anyone reccomend some good manafacturers of Hokkaido proof clothing? cost and looks arent an issue. warmth and weather proofing are.

cheers!

[sillygirl]

Go to a sports shop and get a snowboard jacket. Nice and toastie! Saw me thru a British winter quite nicely

[kotatsuneko]

an excellent idea!

any thoughts on which brands are the warmest/toughest?

[Charles]

an excellent idea! :D

any thoughts on which brands are the warmest/toughest?

Brands don't matter, it's the construction. You need a puffy down-filled coat, the best ones are double quilted so the stitching doesn't go all the way through from front to back, allowing heat to leak out. This is sort of hard to describe.
The most important point is that the zipper is padded so it has a flap over it preventing wind from blowing through it from the outside, and some other sort of insulation on the inside so it doesn't contact your bare skin. There's nothing quite so painful as an icy zipper on your chin.
Alternately, you could do the layered approach, get a thinner outer shell and sweaters underneath. That's more for active sports like skiing, so you can shed layers when you get overheated. You tend to find this sort of thinner shell coats in ski and snowboard stores. Don't forget to get gloves, a warm hat and a ski mask (baclava), and thick wooly socks are helpful too. Most of your heat escapes from your head, hands, and feet. You can stay pretty warm even with an inadequate coat if you keep your head, hands, and feet warm and dry.

I should tell you a funny skiing story. I used to cross-country ski a lot when I was younger. I had an assorted ski wax package, each wax for the appropriate temperature conditions, but I had one wax I never used, the Arctic Wax, rated for -35F and below. Some skiiers claimed that the really cold conditions at -35 were optimal for x-country skiing, but I was skeptical. And then one day, a blizzard struck, it got down to -38, only 25mph winds, time to test out the Arctic Wax! I got on all my warmest clothes. I had warm corduroy nordic ski pants that only come to below your knees, thermal long johns, long wool socks that came up above my knees (try getting THOSE on over long johns), a thick shirt, a sweater, my down coat, and a woolen ski mask. It was only about 5 minutes before I started getting overheated. I stripped off my coat and sweater and tied them around my waist, I got down to just my shirtsleeves (I even rolled up my sleeves) and I still thought I was going to have a heatstroke. But I could not get my baclava off, I had a beard, and my breath had frozen into huge chunks of ice that welded my beard to the wool. I had to go home and run hot water over it to get it off.

[kotatsuneko]

thanks for all that info and advice, Charles!

i`ll be keeping an eye out in the january sales! always good to save some cash, but the cost isnt that important, keeping warm is!

got that info noted down and its sure to be a lot of help.

much appreicated!

btw i still havent figured out how going out in the freezing snow is supposed to be "fun" wtf>!>?