Gear Test: Stoic Outdoor Wear

After years of hawking other people’s gear online, Backcountry.com is stepping full-bore into the outdoor gear game: Today, they announced the launch of Stoic, their in-house brand of technical apparel built for harsh mountain conditions.

Backcountry first tested the waters with a limited run of hats, baselayers, and other items named after themselves. But with Stoic, they’re going after the technical, fast-and-light alpine crowd with a clean selection of hard and soft shells, pants, and gloves. The collection is full of the regular stuff like baselayers, fleece hoodies, hats, and down sweaters, but five signature items sound most intriguing:

–Bombshell Insulated Jacket. A sub-two-pound hard shell that features fully welded seams, Cirrus microfiber synthetic insulation, and a proprietary stretchy, waterproof-breathable membrane called Bombshell.

–Bombshell bib. Stoic gives a nod to the old-school with this full-coverage bib tailored to what sounds like mountaineers and tele skiers (the materials name-drop “front-pointing” and “knee-droppers”).

-Bombshell pant. Like the jacket only, y’know, pants.

-Welder soft shells. Hyper-breathable soft shells that come in three flavors—”lo,” hi,” and “insulated.”

-Welder gloves. Supposedly focuses on dexterity, but with a wool liner for your hands.

Stoic’s core philosophy is, well, core: “Core gear users helping create gear for other core gear users.” They say they created their label with input and feedback from hundreds of users from Backcountry.com’s Gear Guru community.

We haven’t tested Stoic yet, but it looks pretty exciting. As soon as we get our hands on some, we’ll let you know if Stoic lives up to their core promises.

—Ted Alvarez