We asked our Operations Assistant, Kerrie, to drawn on her wealth of experience as a mountain leader and work in the outdoor retail industry to give us a guide to the cosy warm down jackets for your next trekking and walking holiday.

Often referred to as a duvet jacket, these are designed to keep you warm and cosy. As with waterproof jackets, all down jackets are not created equal. There is a vast variety of fill, quality and type of down used, as well as the grams of down used. A jacket filled with duck down will not be as warm as goose down. The drawback – goose down is more expensive. Most reputable brands will use a mixture of goose and duck down which is RDS certified.
The warmth of the jacket comes from the Fill Power of the down, combined with the amount used in grams (fill weight). Fill power is a measure of how well the down expands/lofts after being compressed – this then correlates to the warmth for weight and packability. A high fill power combined with a high fill weight will be very warm.

There are a growing number of jackets on the market now that use synthetic materials that mimic the properties of down. Whilst these can be a great alternative, they are not as warm. The benefit of a synthetic jacket is that if it were to get wet it would still keep you warm, whereas down will not. Synthetic jackets are also not as packable – down compresses by a significant amount so even a heavy down jacket will pack smaller than its synthetic counterpart.

Tops tip for buying a down jacket for cold conditions:

The higher the fill power, the greater the loft, which means greater performance!