Can Mountain Hardwear’s New Mythogen Gore-Tex Pro Kit Outperform the Old?

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By most measures, California-based brand Mountain Hardwear has had a relatively small presence in skiing lately, with just a small handful of athletes representing the brand on a global stage on snow. Look into that athlete team, and you’ll notice it does include some of the biggest names in the sport, including french steep skiing mastermind Vivian Bruchez and the freeskiing legend himself: Sean Pettit. On the product front, those alliances have manifested in a few extremely high-quality and purpose-built pieces of ski apparel and gear, culminating in the all-new Mythogen™ Gore-Tex Pro kit, a matching jacket and bib set designed for human-powered freeride skiing in extremely harsh conditions. The Mythogen™ is available in two colors as both a men’s and women’s kit.

Gore-Tex has updated their highest-end and most protective Pro fabric with their new PFAS-free ePE membrane and DWR treatment to match the rest of the line, and Mountain Hardwear seems to be the first apparel maker to release a kit with the new fabric. Other brands are working on including the new Pro in their lines for next season, but we eagerly jumped on a testing opportunity with the new Mythogen™ Kit to put the updated material through its paces.

On a March product launch trip to Chamonix, France, we spent time putting the Mythogen™ jacket and bibs through the wringer alongside the kit’s lead designer and Vivian Bruchez himself, learning about what exact design choices were made and why. The kit can be considered an evolution of the older Mountain Hardwear Viv kit, which was the brand’s first foray in combining freeride style with a ski-mountaineering and ski touring feature set. The Mythogen™ is more than just a Viv Kit with burlier fabric, though, see more below.

Mountain Hardwear Mythogen™ GORE-TEX PRO Specs

• Sizes: XS, S, M, L, XL
• Fit: Relaxed fit
• Material: Gore-Tex Pro ePE
• Colors: 2 men’s (Gold, Moon Blue/Black) + 2 women’s (Sage/Dusk, Blackberry)

Sizing and Fit

Like I’ve said in my other reviews this year, I like to size my ski outerwear to suit where I will be using it most–though I’ve definitely been trending toward the looser and baggier end of the spectrum for both resort skiing and backcountry touring. Mountain Hardwear’s new Mythogen™ bridges the gap between baggier freeride style and a slighter, skinner backcountry touring aesthetic. I tested both the jacket and bibs in a size L, and felt like that matched exactly what I’d expect from the description–not too baggy, but not slim fitting by any means.

I found that the jacket had a boxier than average silhouette, while the bibs felt like they had a bit of a straighter cut. The jacket is on the longer end of most ski shells, designed to fit seamlessly with a pack (it’s designed around Mountain Hardwear’s Snoskiwoski packs), and will easily cover a harness and any ski mountaineering hardware you might have dangling from it. +1 for stealth points.

The bib part of the pants rises very high on the chest, but doesn’t feel constrictive, thanks to a baggier fit and an integrated cinch belt around the waist to keep things secure. The cuffs are large but not too large, and easily fit over both bulkier alpine boots and slimmer ski touring boots.

Men’s and women’s fit is similar, with nearly identical features across the board.

On Snow With The Mountain Hardwear Mythogen™ Kit

I tested the Mythogen™ kit across a huge variety of conditions, including a week of ski touring and freeride skiing in both cold mid-winter and hot spring conditions in Chamonix and Jackson Hole.

Anyone who loved the burly feel of older Gore-Tex Pro fabrics will be psyched when they first pick up the new Mythogen™ jacket and bibs. The material feels much like the older version, with a stiffer, thicker feeling to it that shows these shells mean business. However, a huge plus of the new ePE membrane is that it allowed designers to use slightly softer face and backing fabrics to achieve the same waterproofing and breathability marks, making the material significantly more packable–a huge plus for jacket meant for human-powered riding that might spend a significant amount of time in your pack. The size L jacket packs down much smaller than most other jackets I’ve tested this year, compressing to the size of a small water bottle.

Gore-Tex Pro has always been known for its unmatched ability to keep you dry even in the most heinous of conditions. On our Chamonix trip, that was really put to the test, with several days of high-output ski touring, racing up the skintrack behind Vivian to ski lines in the high alpine of the Mont Blanc massif and the Aiguille Rouges. The huge relief of these mountains meant we passed through thousands of feet of elevation on any given day, starting at 3500 feet on the valley floor, and skiing off summits at 12,000 feet. Temperatures and conditions fluctuated extremely on these days, going from bitter cold in a snowstorm up high to sunny flip-flop weather in the valley. I loved the jacket and it’s impressive breathability for those high-output days where I generated a ton of body heat (sweat), but needed a waterproof shell to stay protected from wind and snow.

To answer the burning question in many skier’s minds: Yes, the new Gore-Tex Pro material works just as well as the old. You will stay just as dry, it’s just as (if not more) breathable, and it’s PFAS-free.

I found myself wearing the shell much longer than I expected to on ski tours where I would normally stash the shell in my pack, often going the whole day without taking it off. Thanks to the nicely packable material, when it came time to stash the jacket (say, for the ride home on the train), I found that it virtually disappeared in my pack.

The pocket layout on both the jacket and bibs is extremely well thought out, the designers clearly did their homework thinking about where to put zippers in relation to pack waist straps and climbing harnesses. The jacket features two large chest pockets (one with a small insulated insert sized perfectly to hold your phone), two drop pockets by the waist, a removable powder skirt, two large internal drop pockets and a small pass pocket on the left wrist. The bibs feature two large bib/chest pockets, two waist pockets, and two thigh pockets. There’s also a large dropseat-style bathroom flap that doubles as thigh vents. On the bibs, every pocket features a clip-in anchor point and elastic strap to hold an avalanche beacon. Bonus points to Mountain Hardwear for letting the user decide which pocket to carry a beacon in!

Who is the Mountain Hardwear Mythogen™ Kit best for?

While the Mountain Hardwear Mythogen™ Kit is mostly billed as a backcountry kit, we’d certainly be excited to ski this in the resort as well. The burlier and extremely weatherproof construction would make this a great choice for everyday resort riding as well as a kit for just about any type of backcountry skiing, whether you’re storm skiing with friends hunting for pow stashes or forging a new route up and down a technical peak. In other words, we’d be perfectly happy having this be our do-it-all, quiver-of-one kit for seasons to come.