Who makes a good, fleece pullover with a hood that's warm, packs light/small, and doesn't cost an arm and a leg? I'm wanting to keep one in my BOB and my current one from Old Navy is just too big to pack in there.

Fleece is great to wear, awful to pack. I have been unable to find a way to get it to pack small. For packing purposes I replaced my fleece with a hooded fiberfill jacket that compresses nicely.

Hope this pans out. I ditched fleece mid layers for filled jackets. I have been wearing my REI Spruce and it is great. It keeps me super warm down to freezing, is water resistant, and wind proof to 70 mph. It also zips the arms off to be a vest and packs very small. I don't travel without it.

I use a vaccumm packer to suck down the fleece that I carry in my pack. I use it in conjunction with a Gortex shell jacket and pants. It sucks down to about the size of small thermous. Hey dont laugh it works.

All I pretty much wear when it's 28 and up is a t-shirt and a fleece columbia zip-up. Love the fleece stuff, nice and toasty and light weight.

Never seen a fleece hoodie ?

REI has their Rimrock Microfleece Hoodie on sale -- cheap.

For BOBs I usually have a couple of large duffel bags that allow me to carry all the fleece I could reasonably use. I'm not planning on hiking anywhere with them, if I go it will be by truck or with a cart, so limited mobility isn't an issue.

Backpacking I use a huge external frame pack that allows more room than I ever need. I can carry my sleeping bag, any of the tents, a tarp inside it and still have room inside for all my other gear and a second sleeping bag if need be.

I seldom use them but on a lark I got a couple of ultralight compression sacks on sale at a local pack shop. Pretty neat. Using them I can squash down even an overly bulky, and not very efficient, Coleman sleeping bag to about the size of a loaf of bread. These are tough stuff sacks with bands going in both directions that allow anything inside to be squeezed down to its minimum possible size.

It doesn't take long as the buckles operate only one way until a tab is pressed. The biggest has six bands lengthwise and four around the circumference. A quick pull on each strap in turn and twice around both ways, takes about a minute, and it's done.

I like fleece. It is warm for the weight, cheap, doesn't hold moisture and it lasts a long time. A base layer, fleece mid-layer and a rain jacket and pants as outer layer to keep wind and rain out and I'm good for anything nature can toss my way. last I priced it the a complete outfit, including some poly/wool socks and liners was about $100. About a half what one of my mates spent on just his jacket.

The jacket he is such a Nancy about because he doesn't want to get it dirty or muddy or risk it getting torn on thorns or too close to the fire or spotted with pine tar or bug juice. Funny guy to camp with.

We use the Space Bag Travel Bags that enable you to "roll out" the air instead of needing a vacuum to remove the air. This way you can repack in the field, something not easy with a vacuum bagger.

These things work GREAT for M/C Touring, backpacking, BOB, general travel and storage.

I don't know where they were when I was in the Army, but I wish I had them then.

I am starting to move toward them. The wife bought some for a trip to S.C. and showed them to me. They are great! Expensive, but great!

They last for a long time thru saddle bag, backpack and airport luggage handler abuse in a soft duffel.