The North Face Venture HyVent 2.5L Jacket Review

The North Face Venture jacket for men has been around a fair while and is one of the most popular rain jackets. I’ve been using the TNF Venture jacket for some time now and bellow you will ready my thoughts on this jacket after more than 3 years of use.

The North Face Venture is a basic rain jacket model falling in and around the 100 euro/dollar price mark, it is affordable and functional and comes with most of the various features I would look for in a decent rain jacket.

TheNorthFace_Venture_Jacket_Review_03 — The North Face Venture Jacket side view

The Venture jacket is a classic piece of year-round rainwear that has been made with eco-conscious hyvent dt ec fabric. The north faces most popular waterproof, breathable jacket, the venture provides packable watertight performance. I have been using this jacket on several day and multi-day trips, for hiking and alpine climb activities and it has always performed rather well. The only issues with this jacket I ever had was some breathability issues.

Design

The Venture jacket from The North Face, is rather simple in terms of design, though surprisingly manages to include all necessary features for such a jacket. There is a fully adjustable hood with hidden drawcord system, centre front zip and velcro closure, brushed chin guard, lining pit-zips, 2 hand pockets stowable in hand pocket self fabric adjustable velcro cuff and a cinch-cord.

Something that I never really liked about this jacket was the 100% straight cut which resulted to be rather baggy on the bottom part of the jacket. I would prefer to see this jacket with a more athletic body cut, so it would fit better on the body of the user. From the other side, I can imagine this jacket might feel comfy on people with some extra weight.

A great plus of the Venture jacket and a big credit of The North Face, is the large variety of colours and styles this jacket is sold. Personally, I really enjoyed this bright lime-yellow colour. It was looking great high on alpine climbs.

TheNorthFace_Venture_Jacket_Review_02 — The North Face Venture Jacket front view

TheNorthFace_Venture_Jacket_Review_08 — The North Face Venture Jacket back view

TheNorthFace_Venture_Jacket_Review_09 — The North Face Venture Jacket – fully adjustable hood

Waterproofness and Breathability

The TNF Venture is waterproof, it being a rain jacket you would expect that of course, with a PSI (Pounds per Square Inch) of 25. Ratings are at best a guide and don’t always necessarily guarantee performance. However, from my extensive use of this jacket, the venture performs good, especially if we keep in mind the category of this jacket.

The TNF Venture used the proprietary branded fabric HyVent 2.5L. HyVent is a waterproof and breathable fabric with a PU (polyurethane) coating that consists of a multilayer formula for waterproof protection, moisture permeability and durability. In detail, the 2.5L has an oliophobic (oil-repellent) inner layer, which prevents the jacket from sticking to skin or inner layers. This has the effect of doing away with the unnecessary weight of a lining fabric and increasing breathability: useful on lightweight waterproof jackets.

In terms of breathability, my personal experience is not that good. I have used this jacket on various occasions, and when moisture was built up on my body, I could easily understand that it could not escape from the fabric. Therefore, I had almost always open the 2 pit Zip vents and often part of the front central zip. Nevertheless, is not performing less good than other jackets of the same category.

TheNorthFace_Venture_Jacket_Review_05 — HyVent 2.5L

TheNorthFace_Venture_Jacket_Review_07 — Pit Zip

TheNorthFace_Venture_Jacket_Review_06 — Internal part of the Venture Jacket

TheNorthFace_Venture_Jacket_Review_04 — Two internal non-secure pockets

Bottom Line:

The North Face Venture jacket served me for several years on various mountaineering activities and for the discounted price I bought it (50 usd) has been an amazing waterproof jacket. It is comfortable enough, has all necessary features and it packs small. In terms of durability, with proper care the user will not face any problem. The only minor of this jacket -as I guess in other jackets of the same budget- is that is not breathable enough.