Fjällräven Expedition Pack Down Hoodie

Initial Impressions

The Fjällräven Expedition Pack Down Hoodie is a well made down puffy coat with thoughtful touches.  It fits well and performs even better.

Detailed Review

The Fjällräven Expedition Pack Down Hoodie is a light but warm winter layer that packs in a lot of features.  The coat’s outer fabric (recycled polyamide) feels nice in your hands, with a slightly slick texture. The jacket is very lightweight, coming in at 495 g (women’s medium), but almost immediately feels warm upon putting it on. We’ve had a series of cold days in Denver, where even temperatures inside my garage are below freezing. I head out to swim practice before work and usually spend the first half of the drive shivering, waiting for my heater to kick in.  With the Fjällräven Expedition Pack Down Hoodie on, I can feel the coat holding in my body heat, keeping me warm for the entirely of my drive.  

I’ve also worn the Fjällräven Expedition Pack Down Hoodie on daily errands, waiting in long (and cold) lines for delicious pastries, and general winter life activities.  The jacket feels like a lightly supportive hug.  It just feels GOOD to wear.  I’m kept super toasty and protected from wind + cold.

I feel that the jacket fits true to size.  The bottom of the coat hits me around mid-hip and the arms come to just past my wrists. I have athletic shoulders and I don’t have any shoulder or chest restrictions while wearing this jacket.

Jacket Features

The Fjällräven Expedition Pack Down Hoodie has a very sturdy front zipper.  My complaint of other puffy jackets that I’ve owned is the zipper is flat out horrible.  The jacket material gets jammed, the zipper gets bound up, and in once case, the zipper disintegrated, rendering the jacket un-zippable. The zipper that Fjällräven uses in the Expedition Pack Down Hoodie is a double zipper, meaning it will zip from both the top and bottom of the jacket.  The zipper teeth are also on the larger side, opening and closing with ease. It feels higher in quality than the zippers on other puffy coats that I’ve owned. 

The jacket has 3 pockets: 2 generously sized hand pockets that close with a zipper, and an interior chest pocket that also closes with a zipper.  The pockets are lined with the same recycled polyamide fabric as the jacket outer layer. The hand pockets are just the right size and will fit a glove and a wallet or keys easily.  The chest pocket is fairly deep (I can fit my entire hand in this pocket) and easily fits a phone or sunglasses.  The puffy will pack down into the interior chest pocket – you pull the lining of the chest pocket out and stuff the jacket into the “inside-out” chest pocket. But because of this feature, the chest pocket lining will pop out of the jacket anytime you’re removing something from that pocket, and you’ll have to push the pocket liner back in place.  This is moderately annoying.

The Fjällräven Expedition Pack Down Hoodie has a few drawcords to customize the fit.  There’s a drawcord (that you pull from inside the hand pockets) to tighten the bottom of the jacket.  The hood has a few ways to adjust the size and fit.  There’s an elastic pull cord at the back that tightens the hood around your head (forehead and around back) and there’s a nylon pull cord that modifies how vertically tight the hood fits (down around your face).  I’ve managed to dial in the fit of the hood so it fits securely while also being comfortable.  I’ve been able to skip wearing a beanie on my head because the hood fits well and is really warm.

The feel of the front of the jacket around your face is really nice.  The jacket zips up to just about nose level; the inside of the jacket at face level has a soft fuzzy fabric layer that feels good on your face. Add the hood fit customization options from the two drawcords and I’ve been able to find the perfect fit for my head and face.

The Fjällräven Expedition Pack Down Hoodie insulation consists of ethically produced down in stitch-through channels, with synthetic insulation over the shoulders for extra resistance against pressure and moisture.  Fjällräven is committed to using down sourced from ethical sources with a controlled supply chain and utilizing select producers and practices. I haven’t noticed any thin areas or areas where the down has settled – the down fill is evenly spaced throughout the jacket.

Final Thoughts

Fjällräven Expedition Pack Down Hoodie is a well designed and well made down puffy coat.  It instantly keeps me warm, even in sub-zero temperatures and offers several ways to customize the fit for your body.  It has a premium look and feel, while being functional at the same time.  The jacket is constructed from time tested materials, so I feel that it will last many winter seasons.  And if the jacket somehow has an issue, I know it’s backed by a lifetime warranty.  The Fjällräven Expedition Pack Down Hoodie is worth the investment as a lifetime winter layer.

Erin Trail

Erin Trail’s hobby is collecting hobbies. She’s a 5th Generation Coloradan and grew up exploring the outdoors on family camping trips and hikes.  Her first backpacking trip was at eight years old to Grizzly Reservoir – she proudly carried all of her own gear those 3 miles from the main parking lot to the Reservoir.

Erin Trail of Engearment.com

Erin is an adult-onset athlete who started as a Masters Swimmer and then developed into a triathlete.  She completed 5 Ironman races and nearly 20 x 70.3 distance Ironman races, including the World Championship in Lahti, Finland, in 2023.  Somewhere along her triathlon journey, she picked up a deep love of cycling.

Cycling encouraged her to see landscapes in a new way, learn new skills and to develop self reliance; now she often goes and does Type 2 rides just to see if she can do it.  She’s got all the bikes: gravel, mountain, fat bike, time trial and road.

She is even known to combine her love of camping and cycling and go off on solo 24 hour overnight bikepacking trips in the mountains of Colorado. In addition to bikes, she teaches yoga, lifts weights, skis, SUPs and has recently purchased a campervan.

Erin is a former Montana park ranger with a degree in environmental engineering.  She loves getting into technical details while putting her gear (and herself) through the paces. She shares her home in Colorado with her husband, Will, and her 3 cats (Zipper, Brewtus, and Simcoe).

2025 brings some exciting things.  Erin has qualified to be on Team USA for USA Triathlon and will be competing in a World Championship off-road triathlon in Pontevedra, Spain in June. To prepare for this event, she’s got several mountain bike races and training weekends planned in the months leading up to the big day.  Additionally, she’s racing Ironman Boise 70.3 in July.  Once her race schedule closes out in July, she’ll be moving to more adventure based activities (bikepacking, vanlife, and mountain bike festivals).

When not adventuring, she can be found on a sunny patio somewhere, drinking beers with her husband.