Review: Arc’teryx Beta AR Hardshell

Bright yellow and a bit stiff and crinkly straight out of the box, the Arc’teryx Beta AR cuts a clean figure as we pass it around Jason’s house and try it on. It feels fancy, almost too fancy, so much so that I hesitate to actually take it into the mountains. Jason insists. So here we are. This past September, my partner and I hitched a ride from Chamonix to Aosta, Italy, in a van full of climbers and their Portuguese mountain guide, then boarded a bus bound for Courmayeur. The Mont Blanc Tunnel was closed for maintenance, and our final destination, five days later on foot, lay somewhere along the Tour des Géants route in the northern Italian Alps. We powered out of Courmayeur on a sunny afternoon, my pack jammed full of flip-flops, a puffy, many, many snacks, and the Beta AR. Our route traced a saw-blade profile: town to pass, pass to town, over and over again, eventually ending at a Michelin-star restaurant in Cogne, Italy. Day one brought real threats of thunder, but we scurried over the pass and dropped into La Thuile with only a single, distant rumble chasing us off the ridge. Day two felt more serious. Two successive passes, clear skies, and aggressively cold wind over the second col. I pulled on the Beta AR and was instantly wrapped in a Gore-Tex microclimate. The wind battered the ergonomic hood, while inside, I stayed calm, warm, and quietly jubilant. Traversing ancient footpaths through big Alpine terrain felt like a fitting proving ground for the Beta AR. Each morning, as I stuffed snacks around my flip-flops, the jacket stayed near the top of my pack, ready for quick deployment as we climbed back into high, exposed country carved by ancient glaciers. Pointing toward somewhere, out there, Barry Wicks enjoys the raw duality of the Beta AR and Dickies’ cut-offs in the Alps. Around day four, the Tour des Géants ultra running race finally caught us. The TDG is a 330 km trail race that circumnavigates the entire Aosta Valley in one continuous push. As I ambled along in cut-off Dickies and my Beta AR, I took note of the wafer-thin shells and minimal running kits worn by the gaunt racers flowing over the passes. I was clearly living in the lap of luxury with my fully featured setup. I was warm, dry, and comfortable—and crucially, I wasn’t mistaken for a racer at each rifugio as we refueled with generous plates of spaghetti. The Dickies were the tell, the Beta AR, while prime for multi-day traverses or a day meadow skipping in a storm, also looks racey.  When emotional lows cropped up along the way, the bright yellow jacket may have helped buoy my mood. Communication in heavy rain, however, was noticeably hampered by the loud drumming of water on the hood, an inevitable downside of burly technical hardshell fabrics. Floating in a saltwater pool at a two-story luxury spa at journey’s end, reflecting on my […]