Cold-weather activities: Down, Primaloft, Thermoball; which is best?

So this is a question mainly aimed at folks who go out into the snow. I'm planning a snowshoeing trip (around Nelson, BC, Canada) for this December. As I always do when I go into the wilderness, I will have a professional guide who has given me a list of required and recommended gear. I tried snowshoeing once before, several years ago, and it was beautiful and I loved it, except that my hands and feet were painfully cold, as I have poor circulation in my extremities. I now have much better gloves and mittens (wool) and I will buy insulated boots (they won't be in the stores here for another month yet, but that's still plenty of time).

But one of the items highly recommended is a down jacket or vest, which will be mainly for when we stop for lunch, as I expect I will generate plenty of heat while walking, as I love breaking trail, so I'll be taking turns at that with the guide.

So they recommended down, but at R.E.I. they were touting North Face Thermoball as superior to down (does not turn to "porridge" when wet) and I have a very nice Rab jacket with Primaloft, which is also touted as superior for the same reason. Both Thermoball and Primaloft are extremely light and compressible, both of which are important for hiking.

But what I cannot judge, and lack the experience to have any comparison, is how they compare with down for warmth. And what importance I should give to their water resistance. It's unlikely, but possible, that it will get warm enough to rain on us. It's also possible that it will be quite cold. 30 below Celsius is unlikely, but 20 below is possible. Ten below is more likely. On my previous snowshoeing trip, in the same region, it hovered around zero Celsius much of the time, but dipped down to 6 or 8 below some days.

If anybody has experience with both down and either Primaloft or Thermoball, I'd appreciate your comments.

P.S. I know all about layering, as I hike in some very cold summer weather. Layering is the plan. The question is whether the lunch-stop and emergency layer should be down or synthetic. I have no previous experience with down.

 

R.E.I. has very cozy-looking cloth shell fake-fur hats with ear flaps. The sales guy said he thought they would be too warm for snowshoeing. I'm not a fan of Goretex. It breathes about as well as rubber.

 

Oh, yes, quite possibly. When moving, anyway. At lunch it might be nice, but with a wool hat under the hood of the jacket at lunch it still might be too much. Nelson is not all that cold. Not even as cold as Spokane, and nothing like North Dakota.

Yep. "Wool or fleece hat, covering the ears" is on the list, and I have several such. Again, under the jacket hood they should be fine. I still might buy the fake fur hat, though, it felt quite cozy in the store.

I do not camp out. And after a warm shower, with dry socks and regular slippers, my feet are fine indoors.

 

My legs are not too much of a problem. Long before my legs get too cold I'd be cutting the hike short because my hands and feet would be in pain. Legs of course are a special difficulty because you cannot change your long underwear without taking off your shoes. Remember, though, that I spent half my life in North Dakota, where people used to put on their wool long-johns in the fall and not take them off until spring. That, of course, was before the invention of central heating. I have marino wool long underwear for colder weather and silk long underwear for milder cold. I also have rain pants which will serve as a windbreaker. There are insulated overpants, but the marino wool plus the regular pants plus the rain pants will keep my legs warm in the coldest weather I'm likely to experience in Nelson. If I was returning to N.D. I'd be sure to have insulated overpants as well. 25 below C. is common there, and I've been out in wind chill of 62 below C.

What I've only done once, for three weeks, a few years back, is spend all day outside with periods of intense exercise separated by a lunch break. On that occasion , there were days when I had to skip lunch so I could keep moving because my hands and feet were too cold. I didn't have good gloves or boots. My legs never got cold, and all I was wearing on my legs were the marino wool long underwear and medium-weight hiking pants.

I spent two weeks in Australia and two weeks in New Zealand about six years ago. I loved both countries and I will probably go back. But I do not travel well: I cannot read or sleep even in business class on the airplane, and I become so restless it is painful. Maybe if someone invited me on a plane that had a full bed and an exercise bike and a shower...

Your legs really should not have been bleeding even at 12 below zero Celsius. I don't know what could have caused that.