As I bomb back down the way I came up, the Houdini is removed a few hundred meters below the summit, stashed away and forgotten about again……. The fitted hood protects me further as I take a few moments to appreciate the hard-earned view over Wanaka township, the Pisa Range and Mt Aspiring. The wind is cut from my core and because of the jacket holding in my own body heat I quickly warm up. Without missing a beat, I don the Houdini and keep pushing on. Then I remember the forgotten piece of kit, stashed away and unnoticed and unneeded till now. This cool breeze, and my burning legs, are enough to make me second guess pushing on to the top of Roy’s today……. I reach the ridge a few hundred meters below the summit and the only thing that hits me more than the stunning views into Mt Aspiring National Park, is the cool westerly wind, that whips over the ridge. It is warm and calm down at lake level and quickly I work up a sweet on the 1200m climb to Roy’s 1578m summit. Packing down to the size of a kiwi fruit, in its own stuff pocket, I tuck the Houdini into my running shorts and set off for the summit of Roy’s Peak, above Lake Wanaka. I am a big fan of carrying as little as possible – it is one of the reasons I go trail running and not over-night hiking – and on those days when the weather and conditions are a little iffy, the Houdini is a great piece of insurance to carry. And from my experience of trying many different windshells over the years, the Patagonia Houdini shines the brightest. Much more common are cold frosty mornings, windy summits and light showers, and this is where the windshell shines. Well, very useful! OK, not for your required “race jacket”, or if it is totally bucketing down, but those days are few and far between in the bigger picture. It is like you just pulled a cruel joke on them and they walk away, unimpressed and uninterested before the merits of this amazing little jacket can be explained……īut it is to be expected – many races in New Zealand require “waterproof, seam sealed jackets”, so what use is a jacket that is neither of these things?! The only thing dropping faster than the jacket sleeve from their hand, is the excited look on their face, as you answer “no” to the two quick-fire questions. The first thing to spew from their mouth in excitement “is it waterproof” and before that can even be answered, “is it seamsealed?!”. I have witnessed many an excited consumer grasp a sleeve of a feathery light windshell, rubbing the tissue paper like fabric between their figures in amazement. While our North American brethren, whom we seem to most closely follow with trends and gear, have long been rocking this super lightweight, packable layer for mountain missions of all kinds, we here in New Zealand (and Australia) are a little slow on the uptake…. Certainly, it is the most misunderstood piece of kit, at least in this neck of the woods.
The “wind shell” (wind breaker) must be the most undervalued and under-utilised piece of kit in trail running. Here he gives the lowdown on the Patagonia Houdini jacket along with a brief four-one-one on just what the hell is the point of a wind shell anyway… (RUN IMAGES: Brook van Reenen)
And he was intrigued enough by murmurs of Patagonia beefing up its trail running presence Down Under. Grant Guise is bit of a gear expert – as an elite trail runner, he has professionally banged gear along trails and up mountains for years – he knows his stuff.
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