MSRP: $429 (Jacket), $489 (Pants)
Mammut’s Eiger Nordwand Pro SO Hooded Jacket and Pants are very well-made with intention toward functionality, durability, mobility, and multi-tasking. These are not the ever-popularized watered-down versions of outdoor clothing designed to wear over a collared button-up shirt and spend most of their lives in front of a screen doing remote virtual calls between diaper changes, or even worse, collecting dust in a dark basement closet. These puppies are the real deal, made to go up and down big hills and vertical things, get really wet with weather and sweat, slide against rough granite day after day, and transition from one sport to the next in the same outing.
Although the winter of 2025-2026 has been quite disappointing for backcountry skiing and ski-mountaineering in Colorado, I was able to take these hard-softshell crushers out for a handful of proper ski-mountaineering tours, more than 30 days of resort skiing that included uphill and side-country explorations, a few Flatiron scrambles and a few hikes. They traveled with me to Canada, Wyoming, Montana, Utah and throughout Colorado. Overall, both the jacket and pants excelled in most ways, with a few less-than-ideal features to name, mostly with the pants.
Mammut’s Eiger Nordwand Pro SO Hooded Jacket, which I’m going to call ENP Jacket going forward, is exactly the softshell jacket I have been looking for for quite some time, seriously. It’s tough, has a perfect (for me) slim, athletic fit yet can fit a few layers underneath, and has exactly the features I want and none of the ones I don’t. The strengths and weaknesses of this jacket lie in its specializations and simplifications, so the user will want to match this jacket to their preferences and chosen adventures, though this jacket can do just about anything: ski touring and ski mountaineering, ice climbing, alpine climbing and mountaineering, rock climbing and hiking.
Let’s start from the top. The hood is large enough to fit over most any outdoor helmet and has one cinching point at the back of the head that tightens relatively well over a helmet and extremely well without a helmet, providing complete protection from wind and precip. At moments, I wanted cinching points at the sides of the neck to pull the bill of the hood further down and tighter over the front of my ski helmet, and yet, I appreciate the simplicity of this jacket, minimizing additional bells and whistles.
A close relative to the hood, the zip-up chin cover is equally effective and notably high over the chin and can reach up over the mouth when the hood is cinched without a helmet; it reaches higher than your average front zip. If used for what it’s meant to do, the protection from horizontal rocket-sleet is unparalleled. If used for a sunny fall day of cragging, one may choose to leave it unzipped and hanging to the sides.
Two large chest pockets easily stored a collapsible water flask, some That’s It fruit bars, my phone, a few other random pocket stashers, and on a couple of occasions, some napkin-wrapped leftover chicken fingers from the resort cafeterias (I tried to share one with some folks on a bubble-lift near Banff one day—I just got laughs and Napoleon Dynamite references). When left unzipped, these front pockets serve as ventilation, which is nice if you’re a heavy sweater because there are no pit-zips.
The zippers on these pockets, along with the primary front zipper, are #5 YKK VISLON, which are the largest, burliest, and most dependable zippers you’ll find on an outdoor jacket. Plus, the zipper pulls were just as big and burly; honestly, this mini-feature was a standout improvement from any outdoor jacket I have ever owned—with any ski glove I wore through the winter, I had absolutely no problem reaching for the zipper pull, grabbing it first try, and getting it to immediately move in the desired direction, snag-free. What a relief to be able to keep my gloves on at so many moments when I would have normally had to de-glove.
The final major aspect of this jacket worthy of significant air-time is that the ENP Jacket is what I am calling a hard-softshell—did you catch that earlier in the review? Yeah, it’s a thick softshell in character, meaning it’s windproof, breathable and flexible with a full range of motion, and yet secretly, it’s waterproof using three-layered biobased Polartec Power Shield Pro with a PFAS-free DWR finish. Breathable, stretchy, windproof, and waterproof—Eigerwand next weekend, anyone?
To finish up, the ENP Jacket has two large internal pockets for gloves, waterbottles or other stuffable whatevers, Velcro-adjustable wrists, a cinchable waist (does anyone ever use these?), and reinforced seams where needed. The downsides are situational or driven by use. As mentioned before, heavy sweaters may wish for armpit zips and the high chin may be too cumbersome for some on more mellow adventures. When skiing on bluebird days or in warmer weather, I folded the fully-zipped chin under my own chin, which took a little getting used to but was eventually forgotten. At some point after 20 days of use, the lower two-way front zipper (the one that zips upwards from the bottom) started drifting upward a few inches during side-country hike-to-ski days; I have another high-end Mammut shell jacket that does the same thing; functionally, it doesn’t have any negative impact, but it just bugs me a little when high-dollar outdoor garments have little imperfections like this.
Regardless of the downsides, I am so glad that I had the opportunity to test this jacket and add it to my mountain quiver, where it takes pole position for most alpine adventures. It will definitely make my very streamlined roster for an upcoming three-month summer trip to the Italian and French Alps, with a tag-on of Turkey’s Mt. Ararat. Oh yeah!
Pros: streamlined with minimal pockets and extras; durable; flexible; wind and waterproof; large zipper pulls; large-toothed snag-free zippers; moderately adjustable hood; large protective chin for more severe weather
Cons: no armpit-zips; oversized chin reduces versatility
Mammut’s Eiger Nordwand Pro SO Pants are a very well-made pair of ski-mountaineering and alpine climbing pants that would make a great choice for many winter and spring mountain adventures, but especially for someone looking for the versatility of being able to move from skinning uphill to tossing the skis on a pack and transitioning to steep snow climbing with crampons, and then back onto skis for the descent. Another great use could be one of these two scenarios: 1) A trip where skiing may happen one day and ice climbing the next (Canada’s Bow Valley), and 2) a person who likes to simplify their closet and have few items to choose from—these pants can serve multiple purposes well.
The standout features that define the versatility of these pants are the Velcro-adjustable calves and the removable internal gaiters. When wearing crampons, and because few climbers wear stand-alone gaiters anymore, it is important that pants made for alpine climbing have a snug fit around the calves and ankles so when stepping forward, up, backward, or down, there is the reduced possibility of snagging a crampon point into a pant leg, which can literally be the difference between life and death, and at a minimum, severe irritation of tripping over and over again while stabbing holes in expensive outdoor clothing.
For skiing, the ENP Pants have an internal gaiter that prevents snow from moving up the inside of the pants and into the boots and a calf-high side zipper that transforms a boot cut fit into a bellbottom, fitting over most any sized ski boot. To reduce the width and minimize bulk, the gaiters can be easily removed by zipper and two large Velcro tabs on the back of the calves provide significant size reduction, transforming the pant leg from a ’70s Halloween costume into a modern skinny jean. The internal removable gaiter adjusts to two sizes, one for ski boots and the other for mountaineering boots.
Like the Nordwand Jacket, the pants have #5 YKK VISLON zippers and large easily grabbable zipper pulls; as well, they are waterproof, breathable, and windproof. The pant material is incredibly flexible allowing for high steps, wide stems, and hop turns. One can store items in two zipper-closable hand pockets and a thigh pocket on the right leg. No back pocket. The waist is adjustable with Velcro tabs. Thigh-length side vents come in handy for sweaty uphills. The waist snap above the front zipper actually stays snapped throughout the day, unlike pants from other brands that I have tested.
Two aspects of this pant need some design attention for future models. First, the suspenders require extreme mindfulness and care to keep them from falling off their attachment points when putting the pants on. Many expletives were released over the winter that I prefer to avoid—not my ideal way of starting my day in the dark hours of the morning. I’d still buy the pants, but it’s important to know that you really have to slow down when dressing, or find a way to semi-permanently attach the suspenders between washings. I considered taping the suspenders to the pants or bending the metal hooks, but chose to take the original hassle over a newly induced one. The suspenders also loosened up through the day. Solution: maybe just ditch the suspenders. Surprisingly, Mammut has perfected suspenders on many other models, so I’m baffled as to what happened with this one.
The second design issue was the zippered thigh pocket on the right leg. It’s huge and too low, and has an oddly curved zipper. When anything with weight is added to the pocket, it hangs right over the top of the kneecap; it’s truly unusable, except for maybe sliding in a small paper map. I tried to use the pocket once each for lip balm, wet wipes, a transceiver, and a snack—none really worked well. I’m sure newer models will do something different for this pocket.
Overall, the Eiger Nordwand Pro SO Pants are high-performers and will get the job done well, allowing versatility over a variety of winter and spring mountain activities. You just have to forget that the thigh pocket is there, which I generally don’t use much in most pants anyway.
Pros: durable; very flexible; multi-sport adaptable; large zipper-pulls; large-toothed zippers; Velcro-adjustable waist; ventilation zips; adjustable and removable gaiters; waterproof and windproof; breathable
Cons: thigh-pocket is low and unusable; suspenders fall off when dressing and loosen during the day
Mike Lewis is the editor and program manager of the Mountain Standards department at Alpinist. Mike is also an IFMGA/AMGA Mountain Guide, psychotherapist and dedicated mountain athlete living in Superior, Colorado. Find Mike on Instagram at @lunchboxjackson.
