>>1094551I live in Canada and routinely get weather down to around -30C, sometimes down to -40C and colder. I do a variety of winter activities like camping, snowshoeing, skiing, and mountaineering.
CG is popular among city folk because they are decent jackets and are an expensive fashion statement. For people that do nothing active outside in winter, it doesn't really matter if your jacket is TOO warm, and as
>>1094922 says, most people just hate the cold and will do anything to avoid it. CG also makes sense for a lot of arctic level research, because, again, those scientists aren't really doing anything active, so you need lots of insulation to stay warm in very cold temperatures when you aren't producing a lot of body heat.
Big jackets like CG/etc are shitty when it comes to being comfortable in varied temperatures (anything from -5C to -40C), and varied activity levels. For those scenarios, you need a more flexible system. Personally I like a wool base layer (smartwool fits me best), midweight fleece midlayer (marmot and arcteryx fit me best), light-to-midweight synthetic puffy (arcteryx fits me best) second midlayer, and then a hardshell on top (something big enough to wear everything else underneath, I just happen to have an arcteryx). Varying which parts you wear, this 4 piece combo will accommodate ALMOST any activity level at almost any temperature on the planet. The only time I felt like I needed more insulation than this was when I was building camp at -60C windchill AND was exhausted after around 8 hours of high altitude climbing.
