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First drop waterproof-ness
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so i live in the PNW, so we will occasionally get some rain, and some really wet snow. i'm looking at 09/10 first drop, and i was wondering if anyone had experience in the waterproofness? i would love to not get soaked, and besides gore tex, its hard to find a jacket that can take the kind of soaking the PNW can dole out
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i know it was pretty low for 09/10,something around 8k or so. That would probably not be ideal for the PNW, you definitely need 10k at least. The 10/11 first drop is at 20k though, which is a huge and much needed improvement.
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09/10 was 8k/8k waterproofing and breathability. this years is 20k/20k. if you ski where your going to get a lot of rain and wet snow i wouldnt recommend last years first drop. i would recommend either this years saga, first drop or if price isnt an issue take a look at trew gear. hope that helps
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If you live in the PNW do not invest in first drop or saga or LDC. Check out TREW, they really pride themselves in the tech side of their outerwear and it is still super cool.
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Well you said it yourself, you want gore-tex.
You ski snoqualmie, and it's pretty much at sea level, so it would be a shame to get wet a bunch. For however much you pay for a brand new first drop suit, I'm sure you could snag some actual goretex outerwear off of backcountry.
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You're also going to spend $828.00 + shipping and handling for the CHEAPEST possible combo of pants and a jacket. I'm not advocating for buying First Drop, per se, but I'm just saying that you can get much more bang for your buck with a more "generic" brand of outerwear than with Trew. You can spend $300-ish on a Gore-Tex jacket that is probably more waterproof than Trew's by a fair margin, just you won't have the brand name.
But to think about this from a realistic standpoint, I wouldn't buy that $300 Gore-Tex jacket, because I probably am not going to notice a huge difference between wearing that and any other jacket I pick up that is reasonably waterproof. In my opinion, if it's absolutely pouring rain, you're going to be miserable regardless, and paying $450-500 on a Trew jacket isn't going to change that.
So in my opinion, buy whatever you want. I have a pair of Saga pants from two years ago, and an 8k (i believe) jacket from this year. I ski at Snoqualmie and elsewhere in the PNW, and don't remember being extremely bothered by the rain. But if you want to spend upwards of $800 on a Trew setup, go for it, or spend half of that money on a First Drop suit. From my perspective, you will not notice a difference.
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have you used it?
Just because they say that it is 20/20 does not mean that it is magically waterproof.
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honestly if your looking for waterproof, stick with brands known for it, IE HH/TNF/trew/ect ect ect, none of the "ns" brands will come close to waterproofness and durability of these brands
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No, you can get all of this years stuff for 40% off if you get a hold of them with a nice letter. Around $500 is well worth it for a suit that will last forever and far exceed Saga. First Drop was crap last year, I really hope Lesh's new stuff is as awesome as he is hyping it up to be!
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this, hit them up. the guys there are super chill, probably the best costumer service i have ever dealt with. they'll hook you up.
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