Mountain Hardwear Epic Rain Jacket Review

Hi, I’m Rachel Piontak, I’m from Tulsa Oklahoma, and today I’m going to talk about my Mountain Hardwear  Epic Rain Jacket. I’ve had this for almost a year, and it’s got a lot of very cool features.

It’s my first technical rain jacket. Before I always just had cheap things and plastic bags. One of my favorite features, is the zippers are rain resistant. It’s covered in a special, technical material, which means that even though there’s an exposed zipper and the rain can get on it, it won’t actually seep through.

So there’s a nice upper arm pocket, and that’s good for keys or a card or whatever you need. It’s very helpful.

Other than that it’s got the basic pockets, which are also covered by a flap to make them extra rain-resistant.

As well as the armpit zippers, which anyone that has ever moved outside actively knows they are very helpful-for everyone — So you don’t smell.

This (tab for rolling hood into storage) is very helpful for rolling in your hood when you’re not using it. But I’m always wearing the hood because it’s always raining when I wear this jacket. [puts on rain jacket]

Okay, so, this is the jacket on, and notice that this is with two full layers underneath and it’s still not tight at all ,which is very good. I think it fits well. I think something that I was worried about is that it would be too small whenever I put on a lot of extra layers, but it actually is okay! So, Mountain Hardwear makes their sizes nicely.

One of the very helpful features for me has been this (Velcro wrist strap), so when it’s very windy, you can just [strap it] and the wind won’t go right in because there isn’t a big, airflow gap.

So this is the pocket that I showed you before, it falls on the elbow, which can potentially be annoying, if you have, say, something that isn’t very flexible, like a card. If you’re trying to bend your elbows a lot, sometimes it does get caught.

The hood is something that’s a little tricky to figure out. The way you tighten it is the little pulley on the back of the hood, and when you buy it, it’s all the way open, which looks normal and fine, but I found that my hood would just keep blowing off (my head). So now that it’s tightened, it goes around my head and it stays on my head.

It looks like there’s a rim of a cap up there, too?

Yeah, it is, so it keeps the rain off my nose. And I’ve tested it out in some pretty strong winds before, and on some sand dunes and things in South Africa, where it gets crazy windy, and it has stayed on perfectly when the pulley on the hood is tightened. I’ve had no problems, so that’s been a huge benefit.

Anything you dislike about it besides the non-flexible arm issue depending on which items you put in the pocket?

Yeah, actually, this may actually be more of a consumer’s problem, but it’s yellowed a lot on the inside.

It could be because I don’t wash it regularly, but I’m afraid to wash technical gear regularly, because I’m afraid I will ruin them.

It used to be perfectly white when I first purchased it, which was less than a year ago, and now it’s yellowed a lot with age. So, I’m not sure if that’s normal, but I don’t like it very much.

How many stars out of 5 would you give it?

I would give it, maybe, a 3.

Is that because of the yellow on the inside?

Yes, but also because when it does rain and I’m not wearing another layer underneath it, it gets very cold because there’s no sort of insulation, or mesh or anything, it’s just the shell straight on your skin. I find that to be a very big problem when it rains, even if it’s just the slightest bit chilly outside.

All right, well thank you so much!

Yep, Anytime!