Salewa Ortles 2 GTX Pro Jacket Review

From the Dolomites to your front door, Salewa wants to make sure you’re comfortable outdoors.  I had the opportunity to test the Salewa Ortles 2 GTX Pro Jacket while touring in the Tetons.  This was the first time putting Salewa gear against my body, and surely won’t be the last.

Salewa Ortles Jacket Fit

Salewa makes clothing and equipment for mountain folks, you won’t find fat people wearing their stuff.  Instead, this company based in the Dolomites is pushing progression in sports like climbing, hiking, mountaineering, ski touring and more. Salewa recently built a new headquarters to resemble the mountains and included a kindergarten for their employees’ children so that

no parent will have to decide between their family and career.

Along with childcare at work, Salewa built one of the largest climbing gyms in Europe for their employees to use.  Salewa understands what it takes to make quality gear for playing in the mountain. The Ortles 2 GTX Pro Jacket offers a nice clean athletic fit. This is the sort of gear skinny people will love.

Pit Zippers

When I first tried the Salewa Ortles 2 GTX Pro Jacket on, I wasn’t impressed with the placement of the pit zippers. I thought they were going to get in the way as I felt a little bit too much bulkiness in a high friction area under the armpits.  Fast forward to my first tour and I fell in love with the pit zips and their placement.  One of the most frustrating things with touring jackets is not being able to access the pit zips.  Sometimes you can get to them, but it takes 2 hands which is a real pain in the ass.

Do you wear a beacon on your chest?  When the pit zips were opened I was able to pull my beacon out from the side, this will make doing group beacon checks at the trailhead that much easier without having to unzip the front main zipper and undo your top backpack buckle to get to your beacon.

There are also an additional 2 large deep front chest pockets on the Ortles Jacket that for storing an avalanche notebook, compass, snacks and other small items.

With a GORE-TEX Pro membrane, the Salewa Ortles Jacket can easily be worn throughout the year in rain, snow, wind and everything in between. One of the features I enjoyed the most was the Velcro-adjustable cuffs.  Some Velcro is better than others, the stuff Salewa uses actually holds the jacket in place where it belongs keep snow out of your snowboard gloves.

The only thing that could be improved on the jacket would be cutting down a bit of the material in the collar.  Other than that the Ortles 2 GTX Pro is pretty much perfect.

Overall Impression

Built for climbing and hiking and can easily crush a day ski touring or splitboarding.  If you don’t currently own a piece of Salewa gear, let’s change that.  The Salewa Ortles 2 GTX Pro Jacket ($549.95) is worth every penny.  Toss it in your car and know that you have a shell that can protect you against the elements for almost all of your outdoor pursuits.

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