In the jagged peaks and endlessly severe terrain around Chamonix, France, Vivian Bruchez reigns as the mayor of steep skiing. The mountain guide-turned-steep skier lets his ski descents speak for themselves.

But whatever image “steep skiing” generates in your imagination, think steeper. Bruchez is after the steepest lines in the Alps, which generations of mountaineers and skiers before him deemed impossible, or simply for climbing only. 

In this niche-of-a-niche sport that’s part alpinism, part skiing, Bruchez chooses his gear carefully. His request of Senior Designer Will Hagna and his Mountain Hardwear team was simple — one kit to do it all.

“All” in Bruchez’s world isn’t just skiing. “All” is complicated multi-pitch ice, rock, and mixed routes on some of the most jagged peaks in the world. It’s carefully skiing knife-edged icy arêtes in hammering wind, jump-turning hundreds of times down 50+ degree slopes quickly in the blazing sun, slashing through deep powder in a blizzard, and even sitting enjoying an après Coca-Cola. 

That challenge is why Hagna and designers like him got into the business in the first place. They’re free to imagine and employ top-of-the-line fabrics, pockets, and technical features without price points as a limiting factor. From there, the Mythogen Kit was born. This jacket and bib combo incorporates Mountain Hardwear’s best ideas and a few new tricks for high-end ski mountaineering and freeride.

In short: Mountain Hardwear took a big swing with its Mythogen Kit, aiming for big mountain, high alpine, technical use. It’s made with sustainable GORE-TEX Pro ePE. It’s loaded with zippered pockets, ventilation, and thoughtful features that set it apart from other kits in its class. For skiers who want to pursue big, technical objectives, and/or those who want a durable kit that can handle any weather and hard use, the Mythogen Kit is a great option.

Shopping for ski jackets and pants? Check out GearJunkie’s guide to the Best Ski Jackets and the Best Ski Pants.

First Look Review: Mythogen Jacket

I chased Bruchez around Chamonix’s fabled ski terrain during a media trip in March to see the man and the kit for myself. After 10 days in the Mythogen Jacket and Bibs and many more days of testing ahead of me, I’ve come to a few early conclusions for skiers and snowboarders looking to upgrade their kit for next season.

Editor’s note: The Mountain Hardwear Mythogen Jacket and Bibs will not be available for purchase until September 2025.

Headlining the kit is the Mythogen Jacket. It’s a very lightweight but sturdy GORE-TEX Pro ePE 80D shell with a freeride cut brimming with innovative features. The jacket is long but not narrow. It’s designed to size up for a baggier freeride fit or down for a techy ski mountaineering cut. It will be offered in men’s and women’s styles in two color schemes each. 

GearJunkie was so impressed with this kit that when we first saw it, we included it in our Top Picks from the Outdoor Market Alliance trade show.

I often find myself between a men’s medium and large at 6’1”, 190 pounds. I opted for the medium top, which was the right choice for a dedicated ski touring kit. If I were sizing the Mythogen primarily for lift-serviced skiing, where I’m typically wearing beefier midlayers, I wouldn’t hesitate to size up to a large for a more freeride-oriented fit.

Still, I had room to layer Mountain Hardwear’s Kor Alloy Crew under the medium jacket with room for more. Despite the closer fit, the nonstretchy GORE-TEX Pro ePE fabric pattern articulates where it needs to. 

The Mythogen Jacket boasts five zippered pockets mapped to the jacket with a backpack in mind. There are two on the chest, two at the front waist that fall below a backpack hip belt, and a zippered pass pocket on the left wrist.

The chest pockets feature Mountain Hardwear’s signature keeper straps to keep items from bouncing around. The lower two also contain clipping leashes for added security.

First Look Review: Mythogen Bibs

Stretch Where You Need It

The matching Mythogen bibs offer a hybrid design with 80D GORE-TEX Pro ePE from the waist down and more breathable and stretchy bib from the waist up. The legs are nicely fitted. They’re not too tight nor too loose, and the same goes for the cuffs.

The bib portion is billowy and breezy for added airflow on sweaty ascents, and allows for plenty of layers underneath. The medium fit my body well, even if another inch or two in the inseam would have matched my stride a little bit better. 

Zippers & Waist Strap

The main zipper runs from the top of the bibs at the sternum all the way to the bottom of the fly, which makes for a roomy opening. A small waist adjustment strap at the front right hip adds pants security. That helps keep the gussets from migrating below where they should be.

The waist strap adds additional venting functionality. You can pull the upper half of the bib off and roll it down or let it hang, with the main zipper zipped or unzipped. That frees your upper body to breathe when you’re really hammering uphill.

Pockets

The Mythogen Bibs sport six pockets (yes, six!). Two on each leg and two on the chest that match the location of the jacket’s chest pockets. I always put my phone in my chest pocket to keep it away from my avalanche beacon in my left thigh or hip pocket. So I appreciated the location consistency between the jacket and bibs.

The designers gave skiers options in the Mythogen kit for any arrangement of pocketed necessities. Each pocket includes a strap to keep phone-sized things upright, protecting you from debilitating phone flop. Each pocket also has an anchor point, so users get to choose where they stash their beacon. These are the types of design details you only get in the highest-end ski kits. 

Pant Cuffs

I’m an absolute stickler for pant cuffs in ski touring outerwear, so I need to shout out to Mountain Hardwear for dialing this often overlooked detail.

Like breathability, the demands for ski touring pant cuffs are different from resort-oriented ski pants, which are almost always paired with beefy ski or snowboard boots.

Over the course of the season, especially toward the spring ski mountaineering months, I find myself swapping between trail runners, mountaineering boots, tiny lightweight ski touring boots, and my “power” four-buckle touring boots. They aren’t ski touring pants if they don’t accommodate all of them. 

In Mountain Hardwear’s quest to meet Bruchez’s simple request — one kit for everything in the alpine — they found a solution that just works. It’s a simple loop of elastic in each outer cuff, similar to what you find in most softshell pants.

Uncinched, it accommodates my alpine ski boots. Cinched down tight, it hugs my mountaineering boots. It could even work with trail runners for those big ski tours that start and end on dirt trails.

And the inner cuff does its job of sealing out the snow. The snug-fitting cuffs are a meaningful detail in the jagged peaks of Chamonix, where a snagged crampon point could send you off a 2,000-foot cliff. 

Testing the Mountain Hardwear Mythogen Kit

GORE-TEX ePE PRO

I put the Mountain Hardwear Mythogen Jacket and Bibs through their paces in good, bad, and downright weird weather over the course of a week in Chamonix and several more in Colorado’s Gore Range. What I have to say about the Mythogen’s weather protection capabilities is simple. It does what Mountain Hardwear claims, and believe me, I checked.

The brand new GORE-TEX Pro ePE fabric, which the Mythogen is among the first to utilize, repels moisture better than any other breathable fabric I know of. The bibs halted the snow from sneaking in during sideways blowing blizzards and deep powder freeriding. The helmet-compatible hood gave me solace when the wind was howling.

Powder Skirt

The jacket’s removable powder skirt added a real belt-and-suspenders layer of protection. However, I ended up removing it since it felt unnecessary given the bibs. The only real vulnerability comes from the unbacked vents (my preference) if left open. 

Breathability

What impressed me the most during many ascents clad head to toe in the new GORE-TEX Pro ePE was how breathable the entire kit felt. I won’t pretend I started at the trailhead with the Mythogen Jacket on during long ski touring days in nice weather. But it managed to carry me through many shorter aerobic ascents. Of course, some of that breathability comes from the long vents outside the thighs and under the armpit that dump heat.

But the breathability of the fabric itself — the recycled three-layer 80D GORE-TEX Pro ePE — felt as good or possibly even better than the previous version. 80D is light.

For comparison, my burliest pair of ski pants are the Flylow Chemical Pants that land at a whopping 150D. My kitchen scale says 577g for the Mythogen Jacket and 650g for the Mythogen bibs. The lightweight fabric means the jacket packs down impressively small, too.

Harness Compatibility

I ended up skiing with a harness about half the time in Chamonix. The Mythogen Bibs jived well with my Petzl Altitude. The pockets are laid out in a way that they were accessible with the harness on. The cut was also slim enough that it didn’t cause any weird bunching or constriction.

I experimented with wearing the jacket under and over the harness and ended up skiing primarily in the latter configuration. But my somewhat downsized jacket worked just fine tucked under as well. 

Movement & Durability

When skiing turned to rock scrambling, the Mythogen moved with me. Big reaches and high stepping didn’t present any major constrictions or limitations despite the kit’s lack of stretch.

And as expected, the GORE-TEX Pro ePE was unfazed by lots of scraping on rocks. That’s great news for cutting-edge ski mountaineers like Bruchez and every other skier who wants their top-of-the-line jacket to last more than a couple of seasons. 

Mountain Hardwear Mythogen Kit: First Look Conclusions

As I tailed Bruchez through the vast glaciated terrain in his backyard, his gear ethos made more and more sense. A day in his world transitions between lifts, skinning, maybe a quick rock climb-to-rappel to access a hidden powder stash. Maybe there’s a pitch or two of ice, and then a steep ski descent that even watching from a safe distance makes my palms sweat. His outerwear needs to keep up. 

From what I can tell so far, Mountain Hardwear’s new Mythogen Jacket and Bibs do keep up. Built with the brand new GORE-TEX Pro ePE and aerobic-forward features, the kit stayed cool on the skin track. Full coverage provided stalwart protection during driving blizzards and lap after lap of powder slashing. And when it came time to don the harness, crampons, and rope, the Mythogen transitioned to climb like it was made for it. 

And despite the techy features and high-performance alpinism-meets-freeride design, the kit fits casually and looks good at the ski resort. The Mountain Hardwear Mythogen Jacket and Bibs launch in September 2025.