Advnture Verdict
The Salomon Transition Down offers comforting warmth and a nice fit, but a lack of breathability makes it best suited to more slow-paced cold-weather days on gentle trails or in the campsite.
Pros
- +
Comfortable
- +
Responsibly sourced down
- +
Intelligent design, with use of synthetic fill in exposed areas
Cons
- -
Not brilliantly breathable
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Not adjustable at the neck
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Waistband is a bit tight
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First impressions
The Salomon Transition Hooded Down mixes real down (80% down to 20% feather ratio) and synthetic insulation. The down used is responsibly sourced, and each jacket comes with a number you can check on trackmydown.com to see the material’s provenance and ethical credentials. This stands out in a market in which so many cheaper jackets are murky about where their down insulation is sourced from.
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This down is coupled with synthetic insulation in areas more likely to get wet in sudden rainfall, a clever touch to ensure that your jacket doesn’t instantly lose warmth when wet (a weakness of real down is the fact its thermal performance plummets when it’s soggy).
The cuffs and waist is adjustable, but the neck isn’t. There are two zipped pockets on the outside.
• RRP: £154 (UK) / $213 (US)
• Fill: 600 fillpower down and synthetic insulation
• Sizes: XS–2XL
• Weight: 513g / 18oz
• Colors: Winetasting / Night Sky / Black / Icy Morn
In the field
Salomon’s snuggly Transition Down may be as close as you’ll come to wrapping yourself in your favourite duvet – if comfort is top of your shopping list, pick this hooded jacket, which has a soft-touch inner and outer material that feels much nicer than other more plasticky jackets.
This cosy coat didn’t prove very breathable on test and it feels rather bulky under waterproofs, but we rate it for more casual use such as cold weather camping and winter walks, worn as an outer over the top of a base layer and/or a fleece.
We definitely recommend picking a size up from your usual, especially if you want to layer up underneath, as the waistband is rather slim-fitting. There’s a nicely designed hood that can be tightened, but we would have liked the jacket to be adjustable around the neck too, to further trap warmth – the neck gapes a little when zipped up. A version without a hood is available but we definitely prefer the comfort of the hood.
