Field notes · Hokkaido · 2300m
Material testing at 2,300 meters. What we wrote down on day seven, and why the Boundary Field Coat has a second inner pocket.
We spent seven days in the backcountry between Niseko and Furano testing DROP 024 prototypes in real weather. These are the notes we took at the end of each evening, typed from a phone with cold hands in a ryokan.
Day 1 — 1,100m. Clear, -2°C, wind 18 km/h from the west. The Field Coat holds. Sleeves two centimeters too long on the S sample — we already knew this, notes confirm the fix.
Day 2 — 1,600m. Snow, -8°C. Boundary Overshirt as a midlayer under the Field Coat is the correct stack. Alone, the Overshirt cedes to the wind at 15 km/h. Not its job, but worth documenting.
Day 3 — 2,000m. Rest day. Tested the Technical Hoodie in the ryokan corridor. Correct weight for an indoor layer in a building with aggressive heating; too thin for outdoor standalone at this altitude. Good.
Day 4 — 2,300m. Clear, -11°C with wind. This is the edge of the system. Field Coat over Overshirt over Heavyweight Tee works, if the Overshirt is sized to overlap the collar. It does. The inner pocket on the Field Coat is what everyone asked for. Added a second one to the production pattern that night.
Day 7 — back at sea level. Observations organized. Six changes to the production specs, none of them aesthetic. This is the difference between designing in a studio and designing in the weather.
MADE SLOWLY. READ Slowly.