I added two ice axe loops. One (the red) is completely finished. The other (the blue) is more robust but I’m playing with it.
I’ll be down to one when I hike.
Otherwise I picked up wind shirts for Win & I.
Six-seven years ago a good fleece was twelve to sixteen ounces. A top rated rain jacket was twelve. Many wind shirts were seven to eight ounces.
On a section hike Win & I met a brand ambassador for Stio. He wore a shirt for combination wind/warmth replacing his mid-layer, fleece and wind jacket with resistance to light rain. I bought one myself. My color is no longer sold. Eight ounces.
You still need a rain coat with one.
Eventually the microgrid fleece I started the Appalachian Trail with wore out. My Arc’tryx rain coat started to seem heavy though I still wear it around town.
Win and I moved to lighter rain coats at around six ounces. We got better and lighter and lighter fleeces, finally down to four ounces. We used our rain coats as both rain coats and wind shirts to halve the weight for those items.
That use wore the rain coats out earlier than otherwise and led to on trail replacements.
For the CDT we’ve replaced the raincoats. Win has another Versalite and I got a Visp (they finally came back in stock). Win has new rain pants, I still have my old ones.
We also have some of the new 1.6 to 1.7 ounce wind shirts. The poor Stio is in the closet. The new ones are so light.
With wind shirts to use to break wind, the rain jackets will probably last the entire CDT before they wear out.
The neat thing is that our set (fleece, raincoat & wind shirt) weighs about what a fleece or a raincoat by itself used to weigh. I’m getting older but the gear keeps getting lighter.