Flylow Genius Jacket snow test: it's a yes from us!
The Flylow Genius jacket lives up to the name says our Tester Steve Leeder. The Colorado born and based brand has developed a big following since their 2005 debut, producing gear made by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.
Flylow are flying high downunder! Now available in Australia from Alpine Sports Jindabyne.
Which makes it ideal for Tester Steve – no one is more enthusiastic getting out there. He has been giving the jacket and himself a hammering this season at work (guiding AT, telemark and snowshoe tours for Wilderness Sports from Perisher) and play. As regular readers may have noticed, he likes to charge hard and find the biggest boulders he can send off – see our features with him from Mt Wheatley and The Paralyser for a couple of examples. And he’s out there in all conditions.
Any season in Australia is a pretty epic testing ground for outer wear but this year has been crazy so getting to test out this new bunch of gear from FLY LOW clothing has been pretty interesting to say the least.
The Genius jacket is the ultimate backcountry workhorse, made with Polartec NeoShell fabric, the most breathable waterproof fabric on the planet. This is a jacket that is strong, light weight and has just enough pockets and pieces to make it work without all the gimmick that it doesn’t need.
The hood fits over my helmet in a storm but can cynch small enough if you don’t have it on. All the pockets are placed in just the right spots so that even with a pack on you can access what ever you need.
There have been so many hot days spent skiing this season, when the jacket packs up really small in my pack when I don’t need it. But on those crazy wind and Aussie winter rain days I could ski with just my thermal and the jacket and not be sweating a storm up inside.
When I first got the jacket and started to check it out I was nervous I would miss not having a powder skirt, but it hasn’t bothered me at all.
It’s been really hard to find a fault with this jacket so far this year.
My last guiding day I was out in wind rain, slush, shmoo and everything in between and the jacket was beading up through it all. I guess the new OmniBloq Durable Water Repellent really works.
Who is Flylow? Flylow got its start when co-founders Greg Steen and Dan Abrams, both Colorado natives and friends since college, couldn’t find a pair of ski pants that held up in the backcountry. The gear they were using was either built for mountaineering, which meant it was lightweight and breathable but didn’t fit right and lacked style, or it was made for ski resorts, so it looked good but fell apart after a season. So they took things into their own hands, with great results.
