The Best Mammut Jacket for Every Activity | Complete 2024 guide

Mammut has a huge product line, and in this article I review their non-insulated shells to help you choose the best Mammut jacket to match your needs. I’ll start with a little background on the brand and then jump into the extensive product line.

With so many choices for jackets in the outdoor market, we at Outdoor Crunch tend to focus on brands that resonate with our Colorado mountain lifestyle. I appreciate technical gear made for outdoor adventures by people who share our passion for the backcountry. In the best cases you get a design-forward philosophy with a strong consideration for environmental protection. While Arc’teryx (one of our favorite brands for technical jackets and other gear) was founded in the Coast range of British Columbia, Mammut hails from the alpine playground of northern Switzerland. Both brands bring authentic mountain heritage to their product lines. 

Best Mammut jacket for Winter 2024-25

• Best Mammut jacket for mountaineering: Nordwand Pro HS
• Best Mammut jacket for skiing and snowboarding: Eiger Free Pro HS
• Best Mammut jacket for hiking: Alto Light HS
• Best Mammut jacket for running: Aenergy TR HS
• Best Mammut softshell jacket: Ultimate VII SO Hooded
• Best all-around Mamut jacket: Crater IV

What I like about Mammut

Beyond their Swiss Alps heritage, there's a lot to like about Mammut. Their products are made thoughtfully for the activities we love. Details like reinforced peaks on hoods, shaped hoods that stay out of your face (unless it's a jacket for climbing or skiing, in which case the hoods are designed very specifically to fit helmets), double zippers for you folks on belay, athletic cuts for highly breathable active outerwear, and drawcords on ski jackets made to be used with gloves, make it clear that the designers in the Mammut office get after it. Their commitment to reducing their environmental impact is also important to us because the carbon footprint of outdoor gear is rather large. Talk the talk, walk the walk.

Subjectively, I also like Mammut’s style. Great fit, colorways, and an appropriate amount of steez.

More about the Mammut brand

Mammut has been around since 1862 and is a leader across Europe but is a newer entrant in North America. Founded as a family rope business serving agricultural needs, Mammut introduced its first glacier rope for alpine use in 1952. From then on their focus shifted to mountain products, introducing their first avalanche transceiver in 1969. Today, Mammut is headquartered in Seon, Switzerland, with a North American office in Denver and a warehouse in Vermont.

In their words, Mammut focuses on safety, protection, and resourceful performance. You can see a focus on mountaineering and climbing across their products, but they have clothing and gear for all outdoor pursuits. Mammut strongly considers the environmental impact of their business - from materials, to production, to logistics, and even packaging.

I’ll highlight material selection in this article, but if you want more detail on their environmental initiatives you can read their 100-plus page responsibility report here:

www.mammut.com/us/en/responsibility

Here are some key areas where Mammut works to reduce the impact of their products:

• Materials
  • Recycled fabrics
  • PFC-free fabrics and coatings
  • Down insulation and wool are sourced in compliance with the Responsible Down and Responsible Wool standards (RDS and WDS)
• Processes
  • Sustainable textile production sourced through the Bluesign system
  • Use of solution dying where possible to reduce the water used in dyeing fabrics
• Packaging
  • They are working to reduce use of plastics through membership in the European Outdoor Group’s Single Use Plastics Project. To understand the importance of this issue, check out this article from Outside.
  • All cardboard packaging is made of 100% recycled content

Mammut jacket specs

Here is a table showing the major technical specifications of each Mammut shell.

Fabrics

Mammut uses fabrics they develop themselves as well as from well-known brands GORE-TEX and Pertex. Here are the key fabrics used across their shells:

• Mammut DRY Active - Developed for trail running and fast tours
• Mammut SOFtechTM - Multilayer abrasion-resistant, extra stretchy and breathable softshell fabric
• Mammut DRY Tour - Developed for hiking, trekking and winter sports
• GORE-TEX® Paclite - 2.5-layer laminate construction for a packable fabric that is waterproof and breathable
• GORE-TEX ePE membrane - The GORE-TEX expanded polyethylene (ePE) membrane is their first PFC-free offering
• GORE-TEX® Pro - 3-layer fabric with a membrane bonded to a rugged outer face textile equipped with DWR and a backer on the inside. GORE-TEX advertises this as being for climbing, ice climbing, mountaineering, freeriding and hunting. Completely windproof and made for abrasion resistance.
• Pertex® Shield Air - Electrospun nanofibre web, with an open network of interconnected pores. Made to be ultralight and highly breathable.
• Mammut DRY Expedition - Developed to tackle the challenges of high-alpine terrain
• Mammut DRYtechnology™ Pro - Highly durable, windproof and waterproof (minimum 30 denier polyamide outer fabric, minimum water column rating of 20,000 mm).
• GORE-TEX® Infinium - This fabric is windproof and highly breathable but offers protection only for light rain.

Water Impermeability (aka waterproofness)

This is measured in what is called the water column or hydrostatic head rating and measures how much pressure a fabric can withstand before water penetrates it. The test literally uses a column of water, with the result measured in millimeters of when the water penetrates the fabric.

This table from Evo gives a good overview of generally accepted guidelines.

Source: 

www.evo.com/guides/outerwear-waterproof-ratings-and-breathability

Breathability

This gets a little complicated in that there are two measurements given here. All GORE-TEX fabrics use the Thermal Evaporative Resistance (RET) test. For RET values, a lower number is better. 

General guidelines for RET values:

• >6g/m2 - Intense activity (running)
• >12gm2 - Moderate activity (hiking)
• >20gm2 - Breathable but you are going to be uncomfortable with any real activity

Mammut and Pertex fabrics express breathability in the amount of water vapor (in grams) that can pass through a square meter of fabric in a day (g/m2/24h). Using this method, a higher value means the jacket is more breathable.

• <5,000g/m2/24h - Light activity
• <15,000g/m2/24h - Moderate activity
• >15,000g/m2/24h - Intense activity

Mammut jacket model details

I've spent a lot of time with Mammut's shells and have dug through the features, materials, and tech specs to pick my favorites across key categories.