Columbia Men's Gale Warning Fleece

Great addition to my raincoat!
February 17, 2011

I have a Titanium Interchange shell and while Columbia states the interchange components are "interchangeable"; they fail (as do any reviews I have seen) to mention the Interchange system has two different zipper styles. I am not an expert at zipper teeth but my jacket has larger teeth than the s0-called Interchange liner I purchased at another e-site. The zipper teeth were not compatible and I had to send it back and using the photos on Altrec was able to see the zipper teeth better. I recommend a better zoom feature as I still had to guess the zipper was compatible. I love the jacket and would recommend it to others looking for a warm fleece or liner.

Just what I was looking for
February 11, 2011

I have a 7 year old Columbia coat that hasn't seemed very warm the last couple of years. I was suspecting the fleece inner-liner was worn out (that or I'm getting old). I'm a nurse so I wear the paper thin scrub pants and short sleeve shirt w/ a tee shirt underneath. Before when I drove to work (garage isn't heated) if it was less than 20 degrees F I'd need to also add a fleece or sweatshirt to my heavy winter coat to keep me from shivering (in addition to hat and gloves and coat zipped up around my neck). Now I'm just as warm at 0 degrees F as I was at 20! I have a medium coat and bought a medium inner-liner and it fit perfectly! Zipped right in. (It does feel a little bit bulkier - somewhere between the fit of the old coat with and without a sweatshirt). I was VERY worried it wouldn't have those sleeve loops (to keeps the sleeves in the arms of the shell) for the sleeves and back of neck for the outer shell to hook into and IT DOES HAVE THE LOOPS (and they are discrete so if you're going to wear this as a jacket it wouldn't look goofy). And the exterior is largely not fleece (like shoulders - where the rain would hit) so if you're in the rain and using this by itself it would keep you at least somewhat dry. The inside material is slick enough that your arms slide right through. It doesn't seem to produce static electricity. I can't tell that the reflective dots do anything but then again it certainly is a lot warmer so maybe they are working hard.

Great fleece
January 22, 2011

An excellent fleece, very comfortable and warm. Runs true to size, I am 6 foot and the XL size works just fine, leaving room (but not too much) for additional base layers. Does a good job blocking wind, drawstring on the hip lets you cinch it around your mid section. Have yet to try it in the rain.