Most winter jackets attempt to keep you alive by locking in your body heat and shedding moisture during cold, snowy weather. The Rocky S2V Provision takes winter protection to the next level. The jacket features an integrated survival kit designed to keep you prepared for much more than just the weather.
Avalanche equipment is the primary safety provision for backcountry skiing and winter mountain exploration, but longer, less predictable trips also demand a more complete survival kit. Recognizing that not all winter adventurers are likely to remember to bring such a kit, Ohio-based Rocky S2V decided to offer a winter jacket complete with those essentials.
The Provision jacket comes with an Ultimate Survival Technologies survival kit, a Survival Grenade and a Mountain Shepherd Wilderness Survival School survival guide. A series of purpose-designed internal and external pockets and clips give the essentials a place on your person, transforming you into Bear Grylls the minute you slide the jacket on.
To break it down a little further, the Ultimate Survival Technologies survival essentials kit has a flashlight, compass, signal mirror, emergency blanket, medical kit, light stick, rescue whistle and razor saw. Rocky S2V's Survival Grenade is a series of smaller items – firestarter, fishing hooks and provisions, blade, wire, needle and tin foil – wrapped up in 10 feet (3 m) of paracord attached to a carabiner. The jacket's removable powder skirt doubles as a bright rescue signal.
It wouldn't make sense to inject a survival kit into a cheap, inferior jacket, and on paper, the Provision sounds like a high quality jacket. It is made from 20,000 mm waterproof four-way stretch polyester for weather protection and natural movement. It has sealed seams and integrated RECCO avalanche protection. Pit vents provide cooling during sweaty approaches.
The Provision Jacket is new for this Northern Hemisphere autumn. It is available in several colors for US$600 – a steep price tag, but not completely out of the realm of what other high-performance ski shells (without survival gear ) sell for.
Source: Rocky
