Backcountry Beacon

Whether you’re six miles and four hours of storm into a hike, or you’re just braving the maelstrom as your ski lift sways in the wind, cold and wet is not a good place to be. So you go looking for a waterproof breathable shell, and you’re left with two choices: GORE-TEX® outerwear or everything else.

If all you need is shelter from the elements while you run from Starbucks to your SUV parked outside, everything else should be just fine. But if you’re depending on your outerwear to keep you from ending up like Ötzi the Iceman during your four days of a mid-winter hut-to-hut ski tour, stick with the guys with the GORE-TEX® guarantee.

How is it that W.L. Gore & Associates has continued to lead the waterproof breathable pack? Well, the company has been at it for a while, and it has other departments within the company working on stuff like heart and hernia patches, space suits, electric fuel cell technology, and some amazing floss—so there’s a pretty good chance these guys have some progressive ideas about how to keep you dry in the outdoors.

How the company does it: Polytetrafluoroethylene 101

Polytetrafluoroethylene. Rolls right off the tongue, doesn’t it? Back in ’65, science-savvy Bill Gore was hanging out in his basement late at night looking for a new application for polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). At the time, PTFE was keeping eggs from sticking to frying pans (and coating the stomachs of an un-knowing generation) in the form of Teflon. After endless George Washington Carver-like tinkering with raw PTFE, and a little help from his son, Bill found a way to coat computer wires with PTFE, insulating them against signal interference.

This wire-insulating method enabled computers to shrink from warehouse-sized monstrosities to the happily blinking green-screen units released to the public in the ’80s. This discovery afforded Bill and crew the time and funds to explore other potential uses of PTFE. Fortunately for all of us, Bill and his wife, Vieve, had a penchant for the outdoors, and in 1976 the first PTFE-infused waterproof breathable GORE-TEX jackets hit the market. The rest of W.L Gore & Associate’s history is pretty dry.

Back to the present

W.L Gore & Associates astounded the masses with its lightest, toughest, and most-comfortable fabrics to date: the much-talked-about GORE-TEX® Pro Shell and GORE-TEX® Performance Shell. These fabrics obliterated the benchmarks and set a whole new standard. If you’re looking to stay comfortable and dry doing anything from cycling to inbounds skiing, the versatile GORE-TEX® Performance Shell is for you. On the other hand, if you’re out there charging hard all day long every day in extreme conditions, GORE-TEX® Pro Shell is probably your best option.

Meanwhile, GORE-TEX® Soft Shells and GORE-TEX® Paclite Shells aren’t slackers. Go for GORE-TEX® Soft Shells when you plan to exert hard, and you want to move freely and wear fewer layers in cold weather. When weight and space are at a premium, take along a GORE-TEX® Paclite Shell.

Since 1976, W.L. Gore & Associates has been developing materials for the government and private sectors for use in outer space and the human body. The company has used the revenue from these ventures to improve upon its laminating processes. So who cares that W.L Gore & Associates’ original GORE-TEX® laminate patents ran out in ’96 and ’98, leaving the door open for everybody else to hop on the PTFE gravy train? W.L. Gore & Associates has had not only the time but the vast resources of a multi-billion dollar company to push its products, manufacturing processes, and R&D forward.

Last fiscal year, W.L. Gore & Associates raked in 2.5 billion—read that again: 2.5 BILLION dollars a year. You can push your R&D pretty far with that kind of capital. Just ask any of the employees about the top-secret laminating and seam-sealing processes, and their all-of-a-sudden hush-hushedness will tell you all you need to know about how seriously W.L. Gore & Associates takes its products and its guarantee.

Aside from the top-secret laminating advancements, one of the biggest leaps in GORE-TEX® fabric technology is the seam taping process. Taped seams don’t breathe; therefore, wherever there’s seam tape in your GORE-TEX® jacket (or any jacket, for that matter), the jacket is unable to vent moisture. The company’s space-conscious GORE-SEAM® tape cuts down on bulk and bulks up on breathability.

This thin and light seam sealing minimizes the surface area inhibited by seam tape and maximizes the breathable area. The maximized breathable space within an average-sized GORE-TEX® Pro Shell jacket adds up to about the size of an 8.5 x 11in piece of paper—that’s a hell of a lot more space for moisture to escape compared to earlier GORE-TEX jackets. In fact, I imagine there are a good number of people in our office who could slip through a space that large.

Another great feature: Micro Grid backing. One thing that’s always bothered me with most GORE-TEX® shells is that clammy feeling I get when the shell fabric rests against my skin. The self-defeating alternative to this is a microfleece backing that adds weight and cuts down on versatility. But GORE-TEX® Pro Shell’s textured inner surface eliminates the clam-factor without weighing you down. The tiny gridded printing keeps the shell fabric off your skin and helps it breathe more effectively. Now you won’t need to wear a mid-layer to fight off the clam effect while racing the trophy wives into the Starbucks for a mid-storm latte.

It’s no secret that companies like The North Face, Arc’teryx, and Burton use GORE-TEX® fabric in their flagship outerwear pieces. If you want top-of-the-line outerwear, chances are you’ll find that familiar black diamond hangtag with the waterproof breathable guarantee attached. The biggest names in the industry rely on GORE-TEX® fabric to better their own products. How’s that for a testament to quality? The stuff does exactly what it claims. Period.

I’m not trying to blow smoke up your ass with all this tech talk—you can wear whatever kind of outerwear you want. You see, after visiting W.L. Gore & Associates’ facilities in Delaware, Md., and seeing its fabrication, testing, Q/A, and R&D processes in depth, I was worried that I’d be far too rapt a disciple of the products and thus prone to write a heavily biased article. But after ruminating over the moral dilemma, I realized that I haven’t owned any non-GORE-TEX® outerwear for years. It’s like keeping your ski boots near the heater instead of in your car’s frigid trunk during your drive up to the mountain—you just do it, otherwise you’re going to be really uncomfortable later. People who often find themselves out in Mother Nature’s nastiness wear GORE-TEX® outerwear because they know it’s going to keep them comfortable—no matter what.

I’m just passing the info along.

Related Posts:

• Jacket No Longer Waterproof? Why It Happens, What To Do
• Summer-ify Your Gear – Part II: Rejuvenate Your Rain Jacket
• Waterproof Ratings Demystified

Tags: fabric tech, factory tours, GORE-TEX®, rain jackets