Gear Review: OR Trailbreaker Pants
Pat comfortably enjoys the views from the summit in his OR Trailbreaker Pant.
I’ve put in a solid season in the updated Trailbreaker pants, and they’ve become my go to ski pants, whether touring or inbounds riding lifts. There are some good improvements over the original version, and as we get towards spring and transition to the ski mountaineering season in the San Juans, I imagine I’ll be living in these pants. They’ve held up well through the winter, still looking new and clean, which is hard for technical layers to do on a full time Mountain Guide.
The first thing I looked at on the Trailbreaker pants were the zippers. Before even wearing the pants I checked out the feel of these, as one of the issues with the old version was the zippers falling down, especially the thigh vents while skiing. While I run hot, I don’t need to be skiing down with snow filling my pants up. The zippers on the new version are much more robust with a stiffer action, and they have done their job, just like a zipper should.
Along with the improved zippers go the change in pocket design. Right off the bat, I noticed the large pocket on the right thigh. First thoughts were that I would feel everything that was in it, and would end up sitting on anything in there. Wrong! I keep my bulging George Costanza style guide notebook in the thigh pocket, and I can’t even tell it’s there. No problem with sitting uncomfortably on it, either.
Gary looking dapper in his OR Trailbreaker Pants
My favorite change with this is the zipper orientation, from vertical to horizontal. No more worrying about dropping things out of the pocket.
The left side thigh pocket is smaller with a vertical zipper. With the improved zipper, I’m not worried about this opening, and have been keeping my phone in here, opposite and well spaced from the right hand beacon pocket.
Next major improvement is the fit. The new Trailbreaker pants are roomier and seem slightly longer in the leg. Being 6’4” with a 32” waist can be tricky to fit, but the size Large is spot on. The length is great, and I can cinch down the waist with the Velcro adjustments without having the pants bulge out from extra material.
The Trailbreaker Pants are perfect when you’re knee deep in a test pit!
The roomier fit gives these pants better freedom of movement than the original version, and I don’t look like such a skinny legged guide nerd, either. My old favorite Valhalla pants are still baggier than these, and I found that wearing crampons was a problem. The Trailbreaker pants work great with crampons on, and I haven’t had any issues with catching my spikes on the pants. They’re comfy with a harness on, as well, having a gusseted crotch that doesn’t bunch up.
The material feels different than the original version. It seems to stretch more and feels more burly. After a multi sport day of biking up a closed road to ski the local fourteener, Mt. Sneffels, we then biked back down the road in the afternoon. What had been frozen in the AM had become a sloppy mudfest and I quickly gave up on trying to stay clean and dry. The pants took the mud and wet like a champ, with most of the slop beading up and rolling off. When I got home I rinsed them off and threw them in the wash. Out they came looking and performing like new.
Room with a view. Trailbreaker Pants oriented towards Mt. Sneffels.
OR’s ski pants have a nice detail in the built-in gaiter, with the Power Strap Slot. This allows one to run the boot power strap outside the gaiter, and makes up and down transitions quicker and easier, since you don’t have to pull the gaiter on and off the boot. I tend not to use it, though, because my socks are ‘quitters,’ as in they fall down around my skinny ankles, so I have to get in and pull them up throughout the day. Hey, OR, all your gear is so dialed, why don’t you start making socks so I can have some that don’t fall down!
Patrick Ormond
IFMGA/AMGA Mountain Guide
Ouray, CO
