Winter OR Round-Up: Outdoor Research

Outdoor Research has been in the game for amost three decades, but we’ve really fallen in love with their products over the last few years. (The company was started by a hard-core purist named Ron Gregg, who died in an avalanche in 2003. Dan Nordstrom, of the eponymous retail giant, stepped up to continue the tradition of dependable gear at a fair price.)  And, if their booth at Winter Outdoor Retailer is any indication, that love affair should continue well into the fall 2013 season.

Just as their ubiquitous “OR” logo will expand into a stamp design with the full company name, their design aesthetic has evolved in new and promising ways. Thankfully, this move also includes some interesting innovation. Take the Floodlight jacket ($375, pictured), a 800-fill down jacket wrapped in a Pertex Shield+ waterproof-breathable shell, bonding the interior to the exterior for superior performance. This cold-weather warrior leads a variety of ski- and snowboard-specific appear in their fall 2013 line, including the new sidecountry-specific Valhalla hoody ($350) made with stretchy Gore Tex Windstopper with a touch screen-compatible internal pocket, and the Igneo jacket ($299), a freeride-style resort-specific piece, and the new Gore Tex Pro Maximus jacket ($495). (New Gore Tex Pro is redesigned from last-season’s material—and is an estimated 28 percent more breathable with the same stalwart waterproofness). We also loved to see that the new line of performance gloves start at the highly-affordable $55 Riot, which delivers solid warmth for sidecountry and resort skiing performance for a price that doesn’t cause us to gasp.

They’re also expanding their mountain lifestyle line, offering a sane alternative to casual wear for both men and women. The already-popular Feedback Flannel will come out in a variety of new colorways and patterns, and will be accompanied by the vertical-striped Sawtooth shirt ($85) and the men’s Bullwheel and women’s Decibelle jackets ($110, $140 respectively), worker-style soft shell jackets with a DWR water repellant that’s more at home chopping wood or kicking it around town than skinning up in the backcountry.