The Fjallraven Keb Touring Down Jacket is a light and compressible down jacket is designed to provide warmth and protection in cold and freezing conditions and works perfectly as an insulating layer as part of your overall layering system.
You can use it as a standalone jacket for cool dry conditions, layer it underneath shell jackets in extreme cold or chuck it over the top of everything to provide warmth on those exposed belays or when stopping for lunch on winter outings.
How you wear it will depend on what you’re doing, how much effort you’re putting in and of course what the weather conditions are.
What is the Keb Touring Down made from?
The outer fabric of the Keb Touring Down is from a 100% recycled polyamide, or Nylon to you and me, that has been treated with a Durable Water Repellent (DWR) to keep off light rain and snow. The same fabric is used on the inside, but without the DWR to maximise breathability. Fjallraven have doubled up this tough fabric on the shoulders and hood to add a bit more protection in these high wear areas. Even though this fabric is weather resistant and windproof, it is not 100% waterproof, so always carry a shell jacket, because it will rain!
The stuff that’s keeping you warm inside this lovely jacket is some of the finest, and ethically sourced goose down with an 800-fill power. In fact, Fjallraven are so proud of how ethical their down is they’ve sewn a label to the inside telling you all about it and there’s even a leaflet in the pocket with the full story. All that lovely, ethical down is kept in place in stitch-through baffles to keep it close to your body to maximise performance.
What’s fill power? Well, for those who don’t know, it’s an internationally recognised measurement of how well down will “loft”. Loft describes how “fluffy” the insulation is, the “fluffier” down is the more space it can occupy and the more warm air it can trap in all those fine filaments. Down simply doesn’t work when compressed. The number used in Fill Power describes the amount of space one ounce of down will occupy in cubic inches when allowed to reach its maximum loft. So, in the case of the Fjallraven Keb Touring Down Jacket, one ounce of down will loft up to fill 800 cubic inches, or to put that in perspective, it’s equivalent to 13 litres, or the same as a Large Exped Fold Dry-Bag.
What are the main features
The first thing you notice when you put the Keb Touring on is just how incredibly comfortable it is. The fabric is soft and light, so it drapes beautifully, and you hardly know you’ve got it on.
Up at the top you get a fully insulated and adjustable hood. The drawcord adjuster is really clever; it runs through the brim and then behind your head so that when you tighten it up it cinches the hood really close to your head to keep in the warmth and seal out the drafts. It also means that when the main zipped is pulled right up you get fantastic protection for your face. The top section inside the zip is fleece lined to ensure comfort around your chin and mouth. Even with the hood down it shapes into a cosy collar, that can be made even more cosy by pulling the adjuster cord. This has got to be one of the best hood designs I’ve seen on a down jacket.
The main zip is a reliable two-way YKK reverse coil, backed up by an anti-snag draft strip. You’ll also notice that this draft strip features plastic press-studs. These enable you to undo the zip and then popper up the jacket to aid ventilation without losing core body warmth, or in the unlikely event of the zip failing, you can still keep the jacket wrapped around you. That’s a really reassuring feature if you’re doing some hard-core back-country ski touring or winter mountaineering.
Storage wise, you get two zipped hand pockets with a fleece liner to protect the back of your hand, and inside the right-hand pocket there’s a little zipped security pocket to keep things safe. There’s a zipped chest pocket that’ll swallow a GPS or large smartphone and inside you get two mesh dump pockets that are perfect for drinks bottles or bulky mitts/gloves. So, all in all, there’s plenty of storage.
The sleeves are finished off with a neat elasticated trim to seal out the cold and the hem features a double sided elastic drawcord that’s easy to use when wearing gloves.
How does the Keb Touring Down Fit?
I’m 6’3”, 42” chest and 34” waist, I weigh around 13.5 stone and I’m wearing a size Large – And this Fjallraven Keb Touring Down jacket fits me like a dream.
As an insulating piece it’s designed to fit closely to maximise the insulation. The last thing you want is a big baggy jacket as you’ll waste energy warming up all that dead air space, and conversely you don’t want it too tight either as that’ll hinder the downs ability to fully loft.
With this size large there’s enough room for lightweight layers, I’ve got on a base layer and alight fleece, and it fits perfectly. However, if I was intending to use this as an over-layering/belay jacket I’d consider going a size bigger.
Where does the Keb Touring Down fit in the layering system?
The Keb Touring Down is a mid-weight, breathable and packable down jacket making it perfect as a hugely versatile and very warm insulating layer depending on your activity level and the weather conditions. It also works perfectly well as a stand-alone jacket on those crisp, dry, freezing days or as a warm everyday jacket.
Layering is not a precise science and there is no one perfect system that will suit every person, situation or the weather conditions. Some of us feel the cold, others, like me, get hot very quickly, but for more advice on using layers please check our YouTube video
Summary
So that’s it, the Fjallraven Keb Touring Down, an incredibly comfortable and luxurious, yet technical performer for cold conditions that fits superbly and is beautifully made with typical Fjallraven finishing touches.
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Fluorocarbon-free 800FP down
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Recycled nylon outer fabric
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Two hand pockets
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Two internal dump pockets
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Slim fit
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Well-fitting hood