Best of Both Worlds: Helly Hansen Odin Backcountry Softshell Bibs

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Brendan Leonard, best known as Semi-Rad, recently posed a question that I’ve been chewing on for bit. Are you an uphill person or a downhill person? By that, he asks whether you’d rather climb the hill or fly down it. Living in a small mountain town I’m surrounded by both – folks who wax poetically about “tasting blood” while they push the speed limits of human-powered climbing, or folks who won’t go down a hill without some form of mechanized assistance on the way up.  

Me? I’m comfortably in the middle. I like to earn my descents. I appreciate a hard effort to get to the top, the quiet contemplation of the climb (mixed with a healthy dose of self-flagellation), which is usually in service of my chemical dependency to bathe my brain in adrenaline on the way back down.  

Enter Helly Hansen’s new Odin Backcountry Soft Shell Bibs. Never have I ever used a pair of pants that performs as well as these on the climbs – managing temperature and wicking sweat – while giving me the comfort, wind protection and mobility for wiggling my way back down a hill. To have these in a bib format means I can get deep into powder (although we’re still counting powder days on one hand this year), avoid the inevitable wedgie I’d get climbing in regular soft-shell pants, and look pretty damn good while doing it. Best of all, I can get away with just wearing boxers beneath the pants and not worry about a gross buildup of sweat in hardshells that just stay put.  

So, here’s to more snow, more comfortable uphills and down, and a pair of bibs for every occasion.