Plain old parka for walking with the dog in the morning. No good for wet but big dumb and simple. Gets me round a few miles without any more thought than thermos one side pocket and a few tools the other.
For proper stuff I just add to my
onion model. I wear layers of
Buffalo stuff: shirts, wind shirts, jackets.
Essentially, it is just a layering system of very thin pile and Pertex. Get cold; pull on another layer of it. Too hot; dump a layer, but you'll always have an outward facing windproof Pertex layer as you drill down.
I love the system for so many reasons:
1] Fits so well with my semi-amphibious theme. It dries readily and resists moisture quite well to begin with.
2] Instead of using bulk to keep warm the fine layers of Pertex work great to trap the dead air in the thin layers of pile. Making insulation more effective by stopping heat migrating is more interesting to me than adding insulation.
3]. Slippage This is a huge one for me. Pertex is kinda slippery. That means the layers can slide around over each other easily. Brilliant. Insulators like jumpers or even Windstopper fleece under a great Gortex cut don't slide around like that for me. It gives a great feeling of mobility and actually greatly reduces the perceived weight of the ensemble. In fact, in a thread here a while back exploring some of the disadvantages of wool I came across some interesting research. Essentially, they reproduced some old vintage kit at a university The interesting part wasn't merely the warmth to weight advantage or the wet weather performance of modern gear over the retro stuff but the huge amount of extra calories expended working old gear 'cos of poor slippage. The friction between the layers meant the wearer had to work much harder. True, that was a big scale model / simulation of some major expedition for yesteryear, but as I was reading it I could relate immediately. Slippage is an asset.
4] Breathes well.
5] Quiet and green.
Yup, barring Gortex for a real downpour or the dog parka I'll be spending this winter in a system of Buffalo layers too.