The 2024/25 ski season started in earnest overnight in Colorado. With 2 feet of fresh snow on the ground, I couldn’t help but cave to my powder addiction. On day one, I skied the resort until my legs fell off, and then immediately pivoted to ski, touring into the darkness to harvest more of the fluffy, cold smoke.
Salewa’s new Sella Free 3L Powertex Jacket and Pants transitioned with me from resort to skin track without any layer substitutions — a tall order for an outerwear kit. That meant more skiing and less swapping. The Sella Free’s details make it feasible: waterproof, breathable fabric, plentiful ventilation, a stretchy air-permeable bib, and a loose, movement-oriented fit that thankfully grew on me.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been grinding the Sella Free kit through the mountains after GearJunkie landed the one and only exclusive test kit in North America. The kit and I popped out on the other side dry, protected, and with a few notes.
In short: Italy-based Salewa decided to throw its hat in the ski outerwear ring for winter 2024/2025 with the Sella Free 3L Powertex jacket and pants. It’s the brand’s first US foray into ski-touring outerwear. While there are better options for purely human-powered skiing, the Sella Free 3L jacket and pants together form a waterproof bomb shelter from the elements for long, snowy days on skis. That’s a result of the protective three-layer waterproof powertex fabric, full coverage fit, and stretchy bib.
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The kit seals out the elements head to toe -
Stretchy bib well designed -
Versatile for resort or backcountry
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Pant legs are very wide -
Not particularly breathable for a hard shell -
Jacket pockets inaccessible with a pack on
Salewa Sella Free Kit Review
You and I haven’t seen many Salewa logos on the skin track or at the ski resort before. That’s because this is Salewa’s first foray into the U.S. ski scene. Yet the Dolomites-based brand is a mainstay on hiking trails and classic mountaineering routes all over the world. So I didn’t need much convincing to don the kit and head out into the cold.
The Sella Free 3L PTX Outerwear kit consists of a jacket and bib snow pants that can convert to pants in a few seconds. While technically aimed at the human-powered side of the sport, I found the jacket and bibs to be a better match for lift-serviced skiing and the occasional skin track.
The kit’s ability to perform well on both ends of the alpine skiing spectrum makes it a worthy competitor and a slightly more affordable option compared to some of the other top brands in the space.
Three-Layer Powertex Fabric
The 3L PTX fabric employed by both the Sella Free jacket and pants has been impressive so far. It’s plentifully waterproof, even in dumping snow with a waterproof rating of 20,000 mm.
It’s technically slightly less waterproof than GORE-TEX Pro’s 28,000 mm waterproof rating. That may matter if you’re skiing in the absolute rainiest places on earth or fully underwater. But 20,000 mm was sufficient to keep me dry even during a major November snowstorm.
The flip side to waterproofing is breathability, and the three-layer Powertex fabric manages a sporty 20,000g/m2/24h Moisture Vapor Transmission Rate (MVTR), similar to GORE-TEX Pro. They both land on the most breathable side of the spectrum for hardshell waterproof fabrics, which sounds impressive. But in reality, it’s just breathable enough for high-output activities like ski touring.
As you’d expect based on the ratings, the three-layer Powertex fabric performed like GORE-TEX in the field. I got warm on the skin track and made good use of the generous thigh and armpit venting to maintain a sustainable temperature.
Did the inside get clammy when I really started charging uphill? Yes, just like other hard shells, including those made with GORE-TEX membranes. I haven’t come across a three-layer hardshell that’s more breathable in any meaningful way.
Sella Free Jacket
The Sella Free 3L Jacket has a freeride-oriented shape, meaning it is loose, long, and comfortable. The kit I tested was a hair larger than I’d usually ski in (U.S. size large for my 6’1” 190-pound frame). But I appreciated the extra room when I was stuffing layers underneath for really cold days on the resort.
The cavernous Napoleon-style pocket on the wearer’s left chest is excellent. I ended up stuffing everything in there while I was skiing the resort. My gloves, phone, lots of snacks, etc. There was plenty of space for the odds and ends.
There’s a unique trick here that took me a few minutes of fiddling to uncover. The big pocket has an additional zipper slider hiding at the bottom, attached to another slider and zipper underneath the pocket. Sliding that double zipper up opens the jacket to the inside for easy access to the avalanche beacon or the bib pocket underneath. I wasn’t exactly using it constantly, but it’s a neat feature.
There’s one issue with the pockets, though. The waist strap of my backpack cuts that big Napoleon Pocket in half. I couldn’t grab the things in the bottom of that pocket, like my phone, without wrestling with or loosening the backpack’s waist strap.
A pack’s waist strap similarly cuts off access to the wearer’s lower right zipped pocket. So that’s annoying. But the bright side here is that in the backcountry when I’m wearing a pack, I take my jacket off and put it back on so often that I refrain from putting anything in my pockets anyway. Instead, I rely on my pants pockets and hip belt pockets.
Sella Free 3L Powertex Pants
Where the Jacket is traditional in terms of style and fit, the pants have a baggier freeride fit that’s certainly en vogue these days. It’s a style choice that won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. Did it make me feel hip, though? Definitely. And I’ll be honest, the fit grew on me after a while.
Subjective style preferences aside, the formula works. On both the skin track and the ski resort, the Sella Free 3L PTX pants did what I needed them to do. They kept the elements at bay through snow, sun, and wind. But the loose fit also meant that they and I moved freely together. They didn’t restrict, pinch, or limit my movement in any way, which is seldom the case for non-stretchy hard shells.
The pant cuffs are simple and streamlined, defaulting to a very wide opening that can be buttoned in. They’re wide enough to accommodate large cuffed alpine ski boots like my Dalbello Carbio LV 130s and beefy ski touring boots like the Scarpa Maestrale. They’re also wide enough that they feel awkward with low-profile footwear like hiking boots or mountaineering boots.
For that reason, I’d place them in dedicated ski pants territory. They won’t naturally pull double duty for winter hiking or mountaineering.
Also on trend, the Sella Free 3L PTX pants sport huge flapped and zippered cargo pockets on each thigh. I absolutely stuffed those full of things. Each one can easily fit a sandwich, three canned beverages, or a 1990s Nintendo Game Boy.
Removable Bib
You probably know where you stand on the ongoing bibs versus pants debate. I’m squarely in the pants for ski touring and bibs for resort shredding camp. But it’s not a binary anymore. Thin, softshell bibs attached to hardshell pants are the newish category of bibs that combine the best of both worlds.
That’s why I’ve appreciated Salewa’s approach with the Sella Free 3L PTX Pant. They incorporated a removable bib made of a breathable material rather than a three-layer hardshell. It provides the protection of a full bib with breathability in the same ballpark as pants.
The bib zips off via two horizontal zippers that circle the entire waist of the pants. It’s thankfully robust. I’ve blown out more than one of these on other bibs with the same design.
Another zipper up front acts as an extension of the fly zipper to close the bib, which is also sturdy. The stretchy bib fabric provides an almost medical-grade seal on my torso. Not a speck of snow snuck in during the test period.
Layering
The 3 Layer Powertex main fabric of both the jacket and pants is on the burly side. But it’s not at all insulated, so I experimented with a few different layering strategies.
I generally run warm. However, I found a medium wool base layer like La Sportiva’s Wool40 Aero base layer under Rab’s midweight Evolute Hoodie, both layered underneath the Sella Free’s stretchy bib, was a good match for milder conditions (25 degrees F and above). On really cold days below about 20F, I swapped the Evolute Hoody with my Patagonia Nano Air and was set.
Touring was a different story. On sunny days, I managed to layer up top with just a light base layer and a sun hoodie. At the top of the skin track, I’d throw on the Sella Free Jacket and start skiing. When it was really cold, I’d swap the sun hoodie for my Rab Ascendor Summit Full Zip Hoodie. I could pretty much make that setup work for anything I’d encounter in Colorado while having a spare puffy in my backpack (just in case).
On the bottom, I skied resort with a heavyweight base layer all the time. That worked for most conditions, thanks to the big thigh vents that allowed me to cool off. For touring, I bounced between an ultralight ¾-length base layer and no base layer at all but never found a perfect match for not-too-cold but not-too-hot days. I tended to get sweaty either way and then cold when the ambient temperatures were really cold.
Conclusion
After thrashing through resort powder days, storms, and backcountry tours, I stopped questioning the Sella Free 3L Powertex Jacket and Pants’ ability to keep me dry and protected from the elements. They have that box unequivocally checked.
I wasn’t quite as thrilled on the skin track. To be fair, that’s how I feel about most hard shell bibs and jackets — even the most breathable options get warm and clammy fast when you’re a warm person moving quickly uphill. But add much more breathability, and you’ll inevitably trade some of that stalwart protection that makes the Sella Free kit thrive in stormy weather.
The bagginess of the pants didn’t feel natural in that setting, either, even if that’s the hot new trend and youths start laughing at my dorky slim-fitting softshells.
Regardless, I don’t agree with Salewa’s marketing assertions that the Sella Free is a backcountry specialist, and that’s not a bad thing. I think this kit as a whole is much better suited to lift-serviced skiing and sidecountry, but it can also transition to the skin track without much fuss. That use case — let’s call it a 70/30 resort-to-backcountry ratio — matches a big proportion of skiers in the U.S.
That group, in particular, will be psyched on the fresh Sella Free 3L PTX kit while saving some dough over a full GORE-TEX kit. There’s nothing particularly new or innovative here. Instead, Salewa put together a refined outerwear kit for laps inside and outside the resort boundary, regardless of weather conditions.
