Mammut Rime Pro Jacket Review
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According to the Mammut website, the Rime Pro has the “Best heat/weight ratio for demanding stop-and-start activities. No more overheating and cooling – the perfect companion for challenging alpine tours, or for everyday wear.” After wearing the Rime Pro on several mountain bike rides, backcountry ski tours, and through one of the coldest arctic snaps I’ve seen in Colorado in several years, I can say the Mammut Rime Pro jacket has left me unsatisfied.
The Mammut Rime Pro Jacket Fits Slim and Light
I’ll give the Rime Pro Jacket this: it’s not very bulky for how warm it is and it does squish down pretty well to fit inside a backpack as a backup insulation layer. The Mammut website claims the Rime Pro has a wide cut to allow the jacket to be worn over a Hard Shell. But I found it to have a slimmer, alpine, more “European” cut that regardless fit my 6’2″ frame well in the Large size and could be worn underneath a hard shell, but would be tight to put it on over another jacket. It has articulated elbows for free range of movement, and the hood of the Mammut Rime Pro jacket is anatomically tailored, adjustable, and helmet-compatible.
Minimal Yet Smart Features
You’re not going to find heaps of features on the Mammut Rime Pro jacket, but you will find a few nice things that make it an attractive piece. Velcro cuffs, a drawstring waist, and cinchable hood are about the fanciest things you’ll find. There are two zippered hand-warmer pockets with a soft fleece lining, and one zippered chest pocket. Inside you’ll find two Powermesh pockets that are ample in size for storing goggles or (tightly) a pair of climbing skins. Lastly the Mammut Rime Pro jacket has a full-length 2-way front zip, which is “backwards” from most other jackets sold in the U.S. I have heard complaints the 2-way front zipper creeps up from the bottom, but I have never experienced this.
When is Warm, Too Warm?
Trust me, I want to like the Mammut Rime Pro jacket. Actually no, I want to LOVE this jacket. It looks great with a nice “mountaineer” style, fits great, is packable, and comes with some very nice (yet sparse) features. Oh, and it’s warm. Really warm. There were a couple of days where temperatures were in the single-digits on my way to work, and the Rime Pro was as warm as my full puffy down jacket. All this is great, mostly. Until you start to do the thing you bought the Mammut Rime Pro to go do in the first place—hiking, skiing, biking, or any other stop-and-start activity in cold weather where regulation of body temperature and mitigating perspiration is essential. This is where the Mammut Rime Pro jacket fell short.
The Mammut Rime Pro jacket features Pertex® Endurance material with coating on the arms, shoulders and hood, which is said to be water-resistant. The insulating fill is an “innovative synthetic with ideal heat properties for stop and go activities, based on Ajungilak® 2-Phase-Technology” but I found this jacket to be so un-breathable that within minutes of any high-energy activity I was reaching for the zipper, even in sub-20-degree temperatures at elevation. Within 15 minutes of ski touring while wearing the Mammut Rime Pro jacket and a single thin base layer I was overheating and had to remove the jacket, instead favoring just a hard shell. I attempted to wear this jacket on multiple mountain bike rides in below-freezing weather and found the same thing to be true—within minutes I needed to remove it due to overheating. And once I did remove it, the inside of the jacket was often damp with perspiration.
Last Pass on the Mammut Rime Pro Jacket
The Mammut Rime Pro jacket is super warm and stylish, but I found it to be less than stellar in the breathability department and as such not ideal for high-energy activities. I’ve been really liking it for wearing around town, to work, and those sorts of things, as it does pack a lot of warmth into a small, light-weight package. The Mammut Rime Pro jacket retails for $219 and is available in colors such as bison (dark green), imperial-dark merlin (blue), black, inferno (red), and yellow. For more information, please visit https://www.moosejaw.com/mammut.
