Cotopaxi Men’s Bacano Fleece Jacket

Review by Paul Gallaher

Cotopaxi is an outdoor gear and apparel company that was founded in 2014. While I’ve enjoyed several of their pieces of clothing in recent years, I hadn’t been able to try any of their heavier fleece jackets. When presented the opportunity to try their Bacano Fleece Jacket, I was excited to wear it during our long cold winter here at 9,000 feet in Colorado.

Details

The Cotopaxi Men’s Bacano Fleece Jacket is a hooded high-pile fleece jacket is made of super soft and warm materials. The fleece is 100% polyester.

The jacket comes with nice, zippered hand pockets and two additional pockets that I didn’t initially notice. One on the inside of the left chest and one with a hook and pile closure on the left arm. Perfect for a lip balm or hotel key.

Lastly, one of my favorite features of the jacket are the adjustable elastic waist drawstrings. Without them, the jacket would allow drafty air to move though the jacket, but the ability to snug the waist more tightly makes the jacket cozier.

Wear Testing

The Cotopaxi Men’s Bacano Fleece Jacket has easily become one of my go-to items to wear around the house or use as a mid-layer in fall, winter and spring. If you’re a camper where it gets cool at night, this would be a perfect jacket to wear around a campfire in the evenings. So, having a warm fleece jacket like this is a great option! I find myself grabbing this jacket to wear at least one day a week this cooler season, especially on cold mornings. It is just a nice, cozy item to wear around the house, for walking the dogs, or doing errands during “shoulder season” (spring and fall). I have not worn this as a mid-layer for alpine skiing. The jacket IS fairly bulky due to the thickness of the pile fleece, which is exactly what I like about it. I would consider it as a midlayer under a ski jacket on a very cold day, but just haven’t skied in those conditions during this season. Lastly, the jacket appears to be a bit large for my size. I’m 6’2” and weigh 165lb. I have the Men’s Medium, which is a bit baggy on me. Since I mainly wear this fleece over a base layer and normally as an outer layer, that fit is fine. If I intended this to be mainly a mid-layer, I’d try on the size Small before deciding which I’d buy.

This jacket is available in three colors with sizes ranging from Small to XXL.

Paul Gallaher

Paul grew up in Minnesota where he learned to love the outdoors, riding his bike, fishing and canoeing in the summers and skiing in the winters on Minnesota’s 300 foot-tall “mountains”.

After finishing college, he was commissioned as an officer in the USAF eventually becoming a special operations and reconnaissance instructor navigator flying and serving around the world for twenty-two years.

Living and traveling around the world has given Paul opportunities to explore outdoor passions. He is an advanced scuba diver, a pilot, a sailor and has skied in the United States, Canada, France, Italy, Austria and Switzerland.