First Lite Layering System

Spring in Arizona is a fickle season. Some years, the weather is gorgeous and reinforces the appeal of this state I love so much. Other years, it feels like summer lite, and our mountains are anything but blue.

This spring had been especially unpredictable. March gave us summertime temps, and I was really starting to sweat my upcoming turkey hunt. Once April rolled around, our weather normalized a bit, and I was able to gain more accurate insight into what I could expect while chasing gobbles in chaparral country.

I would be looking at cold nighttime temps in the 40s with mornings and evenings in the low to mid 50s. Gorgeous. The problem: midday temps would be in the mid-high 70s. That’s simply a lot of temperature swing. Not many kits can adequately handle that. But mine did; exceptionally well.

Let’s start with the base layer, First Lite’s Yuma Synthetic Hoody. I love this thing and have written about it previously, so I will just give you the highlights. It is seasonally agnostic. I can wear it during Arizona’s infamous summers. It breathes extremely well and has that deep ¾ zip, so I can dump heat fast. It keeps the sun off me, and all but eliminates the prospect of sunburn and heat exhaustion. I made sure to get the hooded version for additional head and neck protection. During the winter, it allows me to hike without getting too hot and sweaty, but since it’s synthetic, it wicks moisture quickly, especially when I pair it with a good puffy jacket during cold glassing sessions.

Next, the Corrugate Foundry Pants. These are my favorite hunting pants. I love their durability, the fit, and the huge hip vents. Again, these pants are pretty versatile in that I can wear them from early fall into the spring. Truthfully, they’re a bit warm for the Arizona summer heat, but it’s not unbearable, and most times I would rather take their durability over breathability anyway.

Those two pieces are standard for me on almost every hunt. This spring, though, I picked up two newer pieces from First Lite: the Approach Hoody and the Brooks Down Sweater.

I grabbed the Approach hoody because it’s purpose-built for warm weather, 40-80 degrees. It’s made with Grid Knit material and breathes extremely well. I knew my Sitka Ambient 75 would be a bit too warm for this hunt, and I wanted a camo midlayer to help mitigate the excellent vision turkeys are known to possess. Also, the integrated facemask would eliminate the need for an additional piece for concealment.

I could not be happier with the way the Approach performed. It worked exactly as I wanted it to. I didn’t notice it when we were hiking in the morning. It kept me comfortable while sitting still and calling, and that facemask and camo pattern proved extremely effective as we called my bird into 20 yards before my 870 Express went to work.

Lastly, I didn’t even notice it while hiking out with the sun fully up and the heat starting to press on us a bit. One thing that did surprise me was how well it held up in that chaparral country. I snagged it on several branches while hiking, and it hasn’t ripped or pilled at all. Also, I am not seeing any signs of wear from my bino harness.

To be perfectly candid, I don’t have a lot of time in the Brooks Down Sweater, maybe a total of five hours wearing it since the beginning of the year. That said, it’s not hard to see that this puffy will be a staple in my pack. We’ve established that I run hot, so my Uncompahgre puffy is just too damn warm for me, and I barely wear it. It also takes up a bunch of space in my pack because it’s larger and bulkier.

That’s not the case with the Brooks Down Sweater. It’s less bulky, has less fill, and sports a little slimmer cut. Normally, I would hate that since I’m not a slim cut kind of guy, and while I’m no scientist, I do think that the jacket fitting tighter to the body helps keep more heat in while allowing for less fill and less bulk. It doesn’t take up too much space in my pack, and for that reason, it winds up living there for most of the year.

I’ve worn the Brooks now while glassing for javelina and deer in January and February, cold mornings filming and photographing for the magazine, as well as when the temps dropped at night during that turkey hunt. Each instance has given me more and more confidence in the piece and, frankly, I’m stoked to continue to put this thing through its paces.

I’ve been a fan of First Lite for a while now. I have clothes from most of the major brands these days and, honestly, First Lite performs just as well as anything else. The pieces I have work extremely well for what I do, their customer service has always been great, and while it might not be the coolest looking camo pattern out there, that Fusion works surprisingly well in the desert.