Outdoor Research Helium Rain Jacket Review

An extremely lightweight and compressible shell, the OR Helium is ideal if you're after a rain layer that takes up as little space as possible. Whether for use as a just-in-case layer while out on an afternoon hike, a long-distance backpacking trip, or a challenging alpine climb, this jacket disappears in your pack like no other.

Performance Comparison

Water Resistance

This jacket kept us dry in several short downpours, and the fabric resisted wetting out reasonably well. As you might imagine, it wouldn't be our first choice for trips where you expect rain all day, day after day. The DWR treatment applied to the Pertex Shield+ fabric held up pretty darn well during our field and side-by-side testing and outperformed several thicker, heavier models in its price range.

The main shortcomings with the Helium's stormworthiness are the wrist/cuff design and minimal hood. There's only elastic on half of the wrist opening and no means to tighten it; this means water can run down your forearms when reaching overhead into rainy weather. The hood offers good peripheral vision and cinches down nicely to help it stay on in the wind. The hood barely covered our entire head and didn't hang over our face or forehead; almost always our face would still get rained on during storms, even if our body stayed dry. While a bummer, it's not a dealbreaker, and we were impressed with its performance, especially considering it weighs about the same as two energy bars.

Breathability & Ventilation

This jacket does not have any ventilation features, save the loose-fitting wrist cuffs (if you can call that a ventilation feature), which fit our lead tester's wrists with some room to spare and allowed some moisture escape.

It does boast respectable, albeit average, breathability compared to other models in the budget-friendly range. Its fabric is more breathable than several of the coated 2.5-layer fabrics like TNF's DryVent or Patagonia's H2No. The Pertex Shield+ fabric is breathable enough to keep us comfortable when generating some heat and sweat, but we had to be diligent when layering; this included stopping and adjusting what we were wearing to ensure we didn't overheat. The Helium was not as breathable as the nearly-as-light North Face Flight Lightriser, which boasts TNF's air-permeable FUTERLIGHT material.

The Helium is breathable enough for cold or drizzly early morning runs and can be a great option to carry in your trail vest. However, because of the lack of venting options and average breathability, if you're a sweaty person or looking for something you can regularly run in, we'd recommend something more breathable, though it's difficult to match its weight.

Comfort & Mobility

Despite a minimalist design, the Helium doesn't give much range of motion or mobility. For "comfort" in the traditional sense, it's a little lacking compared to most of the jackets in this review, as it doesn't feature small nods to comfort, like a micro-fleece chin patch, and its thin fabric was slightly more on the clammy feeling side than most.

It delivers a hood with an excellent fit, albeit a little on the minimalist side as far as coverage goes. The toggle on the back of the hood (to take in or release slack) is easy to operate, even with gloves on. It features a single toggle on the rear of the hood, which connects the crown-line elastic-cinch to two half-length pieces of internal elastic, located near your cheeks.

The Helium seals out weather without taking away peripheral vision. In fact, despite its minimal design, it offered decent peripheral vision. While it's a popular alpine or rock climbing model, it does not fit over a bike or climbing helmet, though you can always wear the hood underneath the helmet if you are desperate and it's storming.

The Helium runs snug and is one of the slimmer fitting jackets in our review. However, for most people, we still recommend your usual size — unless you find that you are typically in-between sizes. In this case, we would recommend sizing up. Our 5'10" 175-pound tester wears a medium size (and also wore a size medium in every jacket we tested), and it fits comfortably; however, it's worth noting that it was a little tight with a puffy jacket underneath, though a thick base-layer like a Patagonia R1 Hoody fit great. Our size large test jacket fit our six-foot, 185-pound tester nicely. Though slightly snug, the torso stays put when climbing and reaching overhead.

Continuing with the minimalist design, the Helium offers one Napoleon-style chest pocket. This isolated pocket is very functional and fits a larger than average smartphone or similar-sized item. This stuff pocket now reverses and becomes a stuff sack for the jacket, complete with a clip-in loop for climbers to hang from their harnesses on multi-pitch routes. While not having a pair of pockets to put your hands in is a small disadvantage, we think folks looking for the insanely low weight and minimal packed size won't find this missing feature to be a dealbreaker. It also makes this jacket very comfortable to wear with a waist belt, as there are no zippers to pinch your hips.

Weight

At 6.5 ounces, this is the lightest model in our review; as a result, it has countless applications. Since most people carry their rain jackets in their packs, this model's minuscule weight makes it even more inviting. It provides average stormworthiness, and no other jacket can touch its weight and packed volume. It's hard to beat for almost any application, like summer alpine climbing, multi-pitch rock routes, and trail running. Folks hunting for the best light weight jacket should also check out The North Face Flight Lightriser, which is 0.5 ounces heavier but offers a stretchier material and a more breathable fabric with similar weather resistance.

Durability

The lightweight 30D ripstop nylon face fabric stands up to abrasion better than expected, but to call it durable would be a stretch. We wore it while rock and alpine climbing for several months, and the forearms are just starting to show some wear from the rough granite. After using it for a summer and fall guiding season and not expecting much from the superlight fabric's ability to withstand the abuse, we were impressed that it held up as well as it did. However, we did take care when wearing it.

The main benefits of this jacket are its weight and packability — and they do come at the expense of durability. The bottom line is the Helium is less durable than some in our fleet, but is more than durable enough for folks who are day hiking or backpacking.

Packed Size

This model packs away in a reversible chest pocket, which turns into a stuff sack, and is easy to compress down. Outdoor Research did a great job sizing this pocket, making it small enough to compress without being so small that it was a pain to stow it.

Since it packs down so tiny, it's the perfect model to keep in the bottom of a hydration, daypack, or multi-pitch pack — so it's always there. If you encounter unexpected rain, wind, or cooler than anticipated weather, this little secret weapon can handle it. The latest version of the Helium has a clip-in loop to facilitate attaching to your harness (where previous versions lacked this feature).

Value

As one of the lightest and most compressible jackets on the market, this model remains reasonably priced. This makes it a spectacular value, as no other model weighs less or is more compressible for the same or less cost.

Conclusion