2024 Norrona Lofoten Gore Tex Pro Anorak and Tamok Gore Tex Performance Bib Outerwear Review

Hey skiers, I'm Jeff from SkiEssentials.com. I'm here at Pico Mountain with a cool ominous backdrop to do another outerwear review. We started these last season. It's been really, really fun for me to kind of assess this gear, get to know it a little bit better. We're totally in the way. Oh yeah, you too. Apologies to that gentleman for what I was saying. It's been really fun for me doing these outerwear reviews, just really getting to know this stuff a lot better, and I am really excited to add Neurona to the mix this season. Just a quick introduction, this is the Lefoten Gore-Tex Pro Anorak, and then these are the Tamex Gore-Tex Performance Bib. So kind of interesting with this one because technically this is not a kit, but I'm a big bib person, so I opted for the bib, and I think it looks really good together. So been having a blast in this stuff. I would say this is hands down the most technical outerwear I have ever owned, and we'll break it down into our three F's. So starting with fit, this is unique for me because this stuff is all medium. I'm 5'10", range from 155 to 160 pounds or so, and I really like the medium. I did wear, first time I wore this jacket was last season, the rep kind of let me borrow a jacket, and I wore a large, and it was just a bit big, so getting it for this season for myself, I went with medium. We'll take a look at the bib a little bit later. I'll take the jacket off for you. I'll sacrifice myself to the elements. The one thing I was a little bit concerned about was the fit of the bibs. They're just a little tighter kind of through the midsection than I'm used to, and I was even thinking about getting myself a pair of large bibs. I decided not to, just stuck with the medium, and I'm really glad I did. It's definitely like the most form-fitting outerwear I own, which is funny because the jacket's still huge, but yeah, I really like the fit. I mean, I'm definitely a medium in this stuff, and you know, the jacket is super long, which is really nice. I'll talk about it more when we get to futures, but I love the fit of the jacket. I love how long it is. Really just like good luck to snow getting in there, and I'll talk more about that in a second. Moving on to the fabric, it is different fabric, so this is Gore-Tex Pro, and this is Gore-Tex Performance. Gore-Tex lists both of those things, excuse me, as at least 28 millimeter waterproofing, and like we've been skiing today in snow, rain, freezing rain, sleet, like you name it, we got it for precipitation today, and just like the way that this jacket, like things just bead right off it is super impressive, and I was on, I'm glad I'm remembering this, I was on the gondola recently with a gentleman in Montech attire, and if you're unfamiliar with Montech, it's like a direct-to-consumer brand that's pretty inexpensive, at least compared to this stuff, and we were kind of chatting about it, and he was like, why is like what you're wearing better than what I'm wearing, and I was like, look at your sleeve compared to my sleeve, and I was just like, water just beading off me, so very, very impressed by this fabric for waterproofing. It is like interesting, the difference, like this is kind of like loud and crinkly, which like people like warned me, they were like, you're not going to like the jacket because it's crinkly, but I've like, it's really not that bad, and it almost kind of like breaks in a little bit, it was maybe a little bit rigid and stiff when I first got it, but not bad at all, and then the pants, it's like the same level of waterproofing, the fabric's just a little bit heavier, like it feels a little bit thicker, and then it's got more of like a rough finish to it. I've really come to appreciate the fabric of the pants, like if this, I feel like if the pants had this fabric, and even like the Lafoten pants don't have quite this same fabric, I would be worried about catching them on trees, hitting them with my edges, stuff like that, where these are like still light and breathable, but they're also pretty rugged and durable. I've skied this stuff like at Stowe on pretty cold days, it is definitely a hundred percent a shell, so you need to layer a little bit, but I've skied it in the cold resort days, does just fine, toured it in the backcountry in Utah, and it was like perfect, you know, that's kind of, it's a little bit more appropriate for backcountry scenarios, but very, very impressed. And then moving on to features, there's a lot going on here, I'm not really even sure how to go about this conversation, but we'll start with the jacket. I think one of the coolest things about the jacket is this like full side zip, so if you need to get into an avalanche beacon or, or whatever, if you're not wearing a mid-layer like I am right now, you could adjust your bibs, so I just think that long, long full zipper is really cool, and just a quick note, if you did get the Lafoten pants, the pants have the zipper too, my lovely fiance has that set up, and like I will say that the way that the zipper like ties into the zipper down here is, is super, super cool, so fun place to start. The hood is great, big enough hood, I always have extra large helmets, so sometimes things don't fit great, excuse me, but really like the hood, and then a plethora of pockets in this jacket, big kangaroo pouch here like a, like a sweatshirt would have, absolutely love that thing for tossing the GoPro in, snacks, every once in a while I'll put my car keys in there, although I try not to ski with my car keys whenever possible, there's a pass pocket here on the shoulder, so you know a lot of people are going to use this stuff in the backcountry scenario, but I think plenty of people will use it in the resort as well, nice big front zipper, which is huge for an anorak like this, and like I can even kind of get to the bibs and the pockets of the bibs by just unzipping that, you don't have to take the jacket all the way off, this pocket has become a favorite of mine, you can tell because I've got a whole bunch of stuff in here, if anybody wants some gum, I've got gum, I'm talking to Matt, so if you're wondering, I'm not, I'm not completely crazy, and then this thing's pretty sweet, nice little goggle wipe, and it's super stretchy, so like I could do Bob's goggles if I really wanted to, this is feeling dangerous, but really cool, packed full of features, I don't use this pocket very much, but I think this is cool to show like the articulation that they build into these pockets, so it's like pretty slim and doesn't like bulge out or anything, but then if you wanted to like, you could actually put a lot of stuff in there, which I think is is pretty cool, I am going to take my helmet off because I'd say the downside to an anorak is the moment of claustrophobia, but we'll go through that right now because we're here, so you know, really in the grand scheme of things, not hard to take off, and what I wanted to mention when we got to this features section is there is a powder skirt that comes in this jacket, and I just removed mine because with the bib and the length of this jacket, like I would never worry about snow getting in my jacket, I like face planted in like eight feet of snow in Utah and it was fine, um I'm not going to do this for very long because it's not not super warm out here, but moving on to bib features, my favorite thing about the bib is this pocket right here, again like cool articulation, and then a nice slick little phone pocket there that just does a great job like keeping your phone pretty secure, and then plenty of other pockets too, I forgot to leave my wallet in the car this morning so I had my wallet right here and keeps it off your knees, please don't go in the snow Mr. Midlayer you just go right there, that's fine, another pocket here, a lot of pockets, this one's like kind of small, be good for car keys if your car keys are thin, but I'm like I'm kind of an idiot and I have like 15 keys on my keychain, oh gosh, it's just extremely disheveled, and then kind of the classic, classic like chest pouch pocket, in fact you have multiple and like more phone sleeves there too, I don't know that I would put my phone there because it's not a fully enclosed pocket, I just like, I'd rather be, rather be safe than sorry, and then no full length zipper on these, but there is, there is nice venting and I, I really appreciate having this mesh in the vent, I like skiing in Utah, I at the top of a skiing track while we were transitioning, I like completely forgot to zip up my vents and if they were, if that mesh wasn't there, I would have gotten pretty soaked, so really cool, and then just like, this kind of falls into fabric, but like this material down here is pretty darn durable, like I've skied this a lot and like maybe one tiny little chip there, but really, really impressive durability, and yeah, I think that's it, uh, I do have the suspenders maxed out as a medium, I think like if again, if I was wearing a large, I wouldn't have to do that, and you can kind of see like it's pretty tight, but I still have full range of motion, I never feel like restricted or limited with my range of motion, so I'm going to put my jacket back on because as you can tell it's winter, that's a good idea, and I'm cold, also we're like apparently right in the way of a backcountry path, so apologize to that guy again, yeah, just thoroughly impressed with this Nerona stuff, it's definitely become one of my go-to outerwear kits, so let me know if you have any questions, and we'll talk to you soon.