Helly Hansen Odin Mountain Jacket Wins Outside Buyer’s Guide Gear of the Year Award
The jacket inspired by mountain guides and Nordic gods impresses hard-charging skiers, both inbounds and out of bounds
OSLO, Norway (October 3, 2011) — Helly Hansen, a 134-year-old active lifestyle brand out of Oslo, Norway, announced today that it won the Outside Buyer’s Guide’s coveted 2011/2012 Gear of the Year award for resort jackets.
“Last winter, we tested 50 ski jackets and the more days we skied in them, the more one thing became obvious: The Odin was our favorite,” said Sam Moulton, editor of the Outside Buyer's Guide. “It was the one jacket that we loved equally on both sides of the rope. It's sleek, light and stretchy enough to wear in the backcountry, with just enough resort-friendly features to make life easy when riding the lifts.”
For 2011-12, Helly Hansen redesigned the Odin Mountain Jacket with input from its professional mountain guide partners H2O Heli Guides and Mountain Madness. The highly advanced waterproof breathable shell weighs 470 gram (size large) and is built to handle the world’s most challenging adventures throughout all four seasons.
“As a group of outdoor aficionados and dedicated Outside readers, we’re truly honored to have the Odin Mountain Jacket receive such a distinguished award,” said Erik Burbank, vice president of Global Marketing for Helly Hansen. “At Helly Hansen, we’ve always applied the principles of Scandinavian design in our quest to make the most purposeful products for outdoor professionals. Odin is a manifestation of that approach, and reflects years of effort by our team, including significant feedback from professional mountain guides around the world. We’re ecstatic that in a field of such tough competition, it was recognized as Winter 2011-12’s Gear of the Year jacket for resort skiing.”
The award-winning jacket features Helly Tech Professional three-layer laminate construction for extreme protection from the environments. It also boasts welded YKK Aquaguard zippers for pockets and the extra-long pit zips, as well as the latest Aquaguard V9 zip on the center closure. A helmet-compatible hood, harness-compatible body, zip-out soft-shell snow skirt, RECCO reflector and modular jacket-to-pant interface system round out the list of technical features.