Omni-Heat Columbia Jacket Review part II

This second part covers the jacket’s performance in the field under winter conditions. In a word: EpicTriumph! Please also read first part of the review.

Here are the conditions I was skiing in and that was from roughly 10:30 am to about 2:00 pm. The weather station collecting this data is about a 45 minute drive from where I was skiing, but conditions were similar. To sum up, we were skiing in temperatures around 6° F maximum and with good wind especially at the top of the resort and riding up certain lifts and skiing down certain runs.

I obtained the jacket I am reviewing in this article compliments of Columbia products. Other than my affiliate marketing realtionships I have NO financial interest in Columbia or in the marketing of their products.

Thermal Protection

I wore less than my usual set of layers, not intentionally but I forgot to pack my wool sweater and left my usual hoodie at the cabin. The jacket kept me warm in challenging conditions and I did not miss the sweater and the hoodie. I did wear a base layer of technical thermal wear, a cotton t-shirt and another longsleeve shirt I am guessing also of cotton construction. I did not miss the two extra layers.

Keep the cargo zippers closed while in high wind or skiing. I was able to notice cool spots especially in the pocket on the lower left side. This I will pay attention too and in fact maybe more related to the fact my shirts would pull out of my pants around there, but once I closed the pocket things improved.

Zippers and Pockets

Zippers proved to be problematic with gloved hands but I did not notice the zippers snagging any of the fabric. The Velcro flap close on the right side did not work as good I was hoping, it seemed lining up the flap with its Velcro half with its Velcro mate (I don’t know which was hooks & which was loops) seemed a little too finicky. I suggest this be made a little more foolproof, perhaps two solid hooks fields (if I recall correctly they were strips and the hook strips had to line up fairly closely with the loop strips).

I opened up the pit-vents and that was fairly easy to do with the jacket on. The pit-vents being opened up seems to have made the jacket a bit cooler, but that was okay because I was on the border of overheating.

I appreciated the cuff closures and those worked fine without any snags.

The upper part of the jacket sealed up real well against the wind. Once I zipped up all the way and then Velcroed the flaps shut I did not detect much wind infiltration, I was wearing a dedicated piece of neck & face wear to further shield from the wind and cold.

Fit under Action

I did not notice the jacket ever interfering with my need to twist, turn, or rotate my body while skiing.

To Sum UP

Excellent jacket, as one would expect from a large and established company such as Columbia. During my day skiing I felt overhot a couple of times despite skiing in harsh conditions and with less layers than I am used to.

This jacket performs excellently!