Mountain Hardwear has always offered seriously impressive gear for alpinists, mountaineers and backcountry skiers. But at this year’s 2017 Outdoor Retailer Winter Market, they’ve shown an even deeper dedication to ski touring with new lines of outerwear dedicated to getting up to get down.
ROGUE COMPOSITE JACKET
I was most impressed with the Mountain Hardwear Rouge Composite Jacket. This 2-in-1 piece is a total backcountry-ski system with tons of features geared toward those of us who earn our turns. The Atherm mid-layer has a powder skirt and huge pockets for storing skins. The 2 1/2 outer layer shell snaps onto the inner layer and has skin zippers that match up to the large pockets on that mid layer.
The mid-layer is lightly insulated with Polartech Alpha insulation in the arms and Alpha Direct insulation in the torso for a good combination of warmth and breathability. The interior is lined with Polartech and monkey high-loft fleece. The outer shell packs down super small so it fits easily in a ski pack, or you can even store it in the mid-layer pocket for easy deployment when weather turns bad.
CLOUDLINE VEST & CLOUDSEEKER BIB
Along with the Rogue Composite Jacket, Mountain Hardwear has a killer bib that is much more than your standard overalls. The Cloudline is a backcountry ski vest that connects to the new Cloudseeker Bib via loops and snaps. The vest is super thin and light so it’s highly breathable yet weather resistant. Pair it with your base layer for a perfect skinning combo. The pants are fully featured for touring and having the vest integrated with the pants created the ultimate bib for protection from ski crashes to nasty weather (because let’s be honest – there’s nothing worse than feeling cold water running down your crack.)
Combined with the Rogue Composite Jacket, the Cloudline and Cloudseeker seems to offer unmatched diversity and performance options for backcountry skiers in the 2017/18 season.
STRETCHDOWN DS JACKET
The StretchDown Jacket that came out last year was a huge and innovative success and for 2017, it’s going to get even better with the StretchDown DS. With thinner baffles and a discontinuous pattern, the jacket has even more stretch and packs down even smaller. It is filled with 800-fill, Nikwax hydrophobic down.