January 30, 2025 
“Out of Office” is a series of stories accounting our experiences trying to find moments of solace outdoors, as well as our interaction with the gear that comes along with us, and that most certainly includes the watches on our wrist. Out of Office is an escape. It’s about finding an opportunity to put the world on pause, whether it’s the few minutes you take out of your day to read this article or the couple of hours you dedicate to getting out there. It’s where our experience meets our enthusiasm. Through this series, we’ve already seen our authors hike in the local hills with a Sinn, explore a glacier via seaplane with a Citizen, and a road trip through Route 66 with Oris. Let’s continue this journey together and see where it takes us.”
Oris, like many watch brands, holds a preview meeting for media early in the year so we can get a jump on their plans for new novelties. Their Vail, CO preview event has been a mainstay on the calendar, and this year I was lucky enough to get an invite. Now, while I can’t share what watches they showed us yet, I did get some hands-on time with the new Oris Divers Sixty-Five, which you can read about here. But the watches aren’t really what I’m here to talk to you about today. I did something on this trip I’ve never done before and I’m kind of already looking forward to doing it again….snowmobiling.
As I was on the plane from Nashville to Dever, I started wondering if I made the right decision. You see, Oris gave us the option of what we wanted to spend the day doing, then split us into groups. You could go snowboarding or skiing, you could spend the day at the spa, or you could go snowmobiling this year. After a wild holiday break and very low temps in Nashville, I pondered on the plane if snowmobiling was the right choice. The spa was starting to sound very nice….and warm. But, as I took that connecting flight from Denver into Vail and looked out my window, those Rocky Mountain peaks confirmed to me that I made the smart decision and I needed to be outside to really soak it all in.
Once wheels were on the ground, I made my way through the Eagle County Regional Airport to find my ride into snow heavy Vail. By the way, this airport is one of the smallest I’ve visited in the US with just six gates total, and is very rustic and cute with almost no security wait times when flying out of it! It’s about a 35 minute drive from the airport into Vail so I had plans to sit back and close my eyes a bit and finally relax without having someone touching elbows beside me. My driver had other plans. He was quite energized from, as he stated, just taking a nap himself and he was ready to give me some history and dad jokes all the way to Vail. All kidding aside, he was a super friendly driver and kept me entertained on my drive in. Like clockwork, John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High” played on the radio and I sort of felt at home.
Vail is home to about 5,500 residents and sees over 2.5 million tourists every year. I counted up over a dozen hotels in the Vail area and of course, there are a slew of condos and rentals to choose from too. Our hotel was situated right at the base of the ski mountain and the views out my window were just gorgeous but a reminder of the freezing temps outside. I could literally feel cold air blasting through the closed sliding door. Once everyone in our group had arrived, we all headed into town on one of the many free electric buses that run from 6 am to 2 am every day. We had a wonderful dinner at Leonora and then my stuffed belly headed back to the room to get some nervously excited rest before the big adventure day ahead of me.
I woke up that next morning and quickly looked outside my window. Yup, there’s still snow out there. I then glanced at my phone as it read the local temperature at “3 degrees Fahrenheit”. Gulp. “Maybe I should have done the spa,” I said to myself again. “If it’s 3 degrees here at the hotel, and we’re going further up the mountain today to hit the tracks, this southern girl is going to freeze her butt off.” But, I’m not one for backing out of a challenge and I was still really excited to snowmobile for the first time so I started to gear up.
On the wrist is the Oris Propilot Coulson Limited Edition. Oris gave us all free range to pick watches in their current collection and with the recent California Wildfires at the top of mind on this trip, I knew I wanted to give this watch, made in collaboration with an elite firefighting unit, a field test. Plus, I thought it would look cool against the snowy backdrop in the mountains. The Coulson Propilot is 41mm and comes on a 3D printed carbon fiber case.This made it very light on my wrist and I didn’t have any cold metal parts freezing my hands while out on the trails. If you’re not familiar with who or what Coulson is, they are a private firefighting company based in Canada and are now a leading force in aerial firefighting. They use modern aircrafts with super skilled pilots all around the US and Canada to put out fires. Just before departing on this trip I had heard on the news that they were helping in California and it struck me that this would be a great watch to wear for this experience. A little fire and ice action.
We headed out early that morning in a team of 6 up to Camp Hale. Camp Hale sits about 1,200 feet higher than vail at 9,200 feet. For those not familiar (I wasn’t), Camp Hale was initially a base for World War II winter survival training. So soldiers came up here from all over the nation to train in tough conditions. The Forest Service took control of the area in 1966 and it is now a historic site with a ton of activities to do in both summer and winter. While you have ATV tours in the summer, in the winter, you’re offered a fleet of snowmobiles to take out on the trails.
We reached the lodge and it was go-time to put on all our winter gear. I knew the temps were going to be low before the trip so I came prepared. I wore a base layer on the top and bottom to keep sweat from soaking and turning cold. Then I wore a pair of Freedom Insulated Pants from Northface for my bottoms. My hope was that these would keep me warm and dry. Then for my mid-layer on top, I wore my trusty Arc’teryx Atom Hoodie. This jacket is one of my favorites and keeps me super warm and toasty, especially when I’m doing an activity. Then, the last layer on top is a Burton shell that kept the water and wind off me. This one is camo because who can resist a fun camo jacket? I’ve added some Smith camo goggles to match the jacket and it’s a personal favorite combo.
With warm wool socks on, I did take part in utilizing their boots for the trip as they seemed much more insulated than the ones I brought. Then, a borrowed safety helmet just in case we wrecked or got thrown off the Ski-Doo. I stuck some hand warmers in the pockets of my pants, gloves, and jacket just for good measure.
I had a bit of a conundrum when choosing what camera to bring on this trip but ultimately decided to bring the Leica Q3 43. I had almost brought the SL2 and a big 70-200 lens but at the last minute decided I wanted to keep my gear light and I am sure glad I did. The Q3 didn’t weigh me down and with 60 megapixels, I was able to crop in on several frames and still keep a ton of sharpness.
The team lined up to pick their bikes and we got a quick overview of how to operate the Ski-Doos. I figured we would have a guide, but nope, we learned we would all be on our own out there. Luckily, Oris’s Josh Shanks took the lead in memorizing the quick map and instructions we were given in about 30 seconds and off we went! I was second to last in our line up on the trails and was glad to be towards the back. While the guys were zooming along, I wanted to take a little more time and take in all the scenery. I would stop quickly to snap a few photos but then made sure to push the gas to catch up as I didn’t want to miss a turn I was supposed to take.
We started to climb up and up the mountain taking some nice switchbacks as we started to get past the trees. We made several stops along the way to catch up as we couldn’t really hear anything while operating the snowmobile. We hit the top of the mountain and the views were spectacular. I’ll admit, it was a tiny bit difficult for me to breathe at the top. I am mildly asthmatic so I had my inhaler in my kit, and it came in handy. A few puffs, and I was good to go. We hung out there quite a bit before heading back down the mountain. I continued to check the Propilot throughout the ride as we were sort of on a tight schedule to make it back in time. Also that bright fire dial was hard not to look at against the stark white backdrop of snow.
The trails we were on were nice and groomed on the way up so we were really the first group cutting through them. It makes the ride very smooth, but on the way back, clearly more groups were riding around and it became harder to keep the snowmobile from wobbling especially at lower speeds. I think I clocked my high speed coming back down around 46 miles per hour, which felt a bit faster on the Ski-Doo than if I was driving a car. We took a bit of the long way round, coming back to the lodge, and stopped at a scenic trail cut out between beautiful evergreens. It felt like we were right in the middle of the forest. I love the way heavy snowfall covers the pines. Our team had fun walking in the deep snow at one of our pit stops, but I was not about that. The gear was doing a great job of keeping me warm. I definitely recommend a scarf or neck gaiter on one of these, as the cold wind will eat you up at high speeds. Luckily, I had mine on hand.
We made it back to the lodge and started our 30-minute descent back to Vail all in one piece! On the bus back, I couldn’t help but have a smile on my face from the thrilling ride and started thinking about how to get myself back to Colorado for more snowmobiling and perhaps even going off-trail a bit. Once back, we all went for lunch together for the watch preview (some exciting things to come!) and caught up with the other groups who were skiing and spa’ing that same morning. I took the opportunity to catch some more wrist shots of the Oris Propilot Coulson, which I honestly forgot was on my wrist, it was so light. Then we were able to rest up for a few hours. Some folks went for naps or shopping.
I ended up back in my room, excited to start looking at photos and going through some edits. My hands were quite frozen as we were riding so I didn’t really get a chance to preview them fully. Finally, we had dinner at the lovely Alpenrose which featured a European Alpine cuisine. Beers and warm cheese is exactly how I wanted to end the trip to Vail. I sat next to Oris’s Co-CEO, Rolf Studer at dinner and we chatted about why he picks Vail of all the cities in Colorado. It was interesting to hear that he’s traveled all over the U.S. and has been to all the ski towns in Colorado, and Vail has always held a special place in his heart and it’s where his family loves to visit as well. As the second largest ski resort in North America, it’s easy to see why this place is so special and I’d love to come back in the summer and see what they have to offer.
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