Comments on: In praise of the original soft shell – Wool Pants

By: Cristobal

Cristobal — Tue, 21 Jan 2014 15:48:57 +0000

I got some old school, super thick wool hunting pants on Ebay for $10. Classic red plaid, old LL Bean, and crazy warm. In fact, too warm for serious uphill hiking, but for easy walking in sub-zero weather, thy’re perfect. Also ideal for sitting around the campfire on a cold night. Unlike modern synthetics, wool is quite resistant to small sparks and embers from the fire.

By: Paul Mags

Paul Mags — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 02:41:09 +0000

In reply to James of Canada. I realize that, but I was specifically making the comparison to where the gentlemen who maintain Winter Trekking are located (on the cold and dry Canadian shield). A lot different than where you are located which is similar to where I grew up in coastal New England. Cheers!

By: James of Canada

James of Canada — Sun, 19 Jan 2014 09:54:50 +0000

Not all of Canada is the same, we have to mild but wet coasts in the winter.

For cheap wool pants you have two options:

Military pants tend to be thinner (a good thing) but try not to get the ones with a small button fly as they can be hard to undo with numb fingers, also most have cotton pockets and inner waistband.

Thrift stores (which may also sell military ones) also give the option of civy workman wool pants that tend to be thinker (Just picked up a pair of Bigbill brand wool pants) and have zipper flys. Some have cotton pockets and some have poly pockets.

These two areas gives you a choice of thin/heavy wool pants to match to your weather conditions and your hiking style.

By: Paul Mags

Paul Mags — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 22:07:34 +0000

In reply to Ross Gilmore.

Without knowing more about the conditions where you were, I’ll just say I’ve absolutely loved them for Colorado where it is cold and dry and the snow tends to be “fluffy”. If anything I find soft shell pants get wet and stay wet.

The gentlemen in Canada (referenced in the above article) who basically live with them in similar conditions like them as well.

Can’t speak for other places…but I suspect that would not work as well in the cold wet areas. Nor would I want to use them there (as I mentioned in the article above).

YMMV.

By: Ross Gilmore

Ross Gilmore — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 13:05:08 +0000

Thank you for the post. I found it by following your post on the trip with Andrew Skurka.

I tried wearing wool pants for quite a while, mainly because I liked the way the looked. 🙂

I switched from them for two reasons. The first is something you mentioned, snow gets on them very easily. They seemed to just attract it. If it was snowing, within half an hour my olive grab wool pants would look completely white. The answer was constantly brushing off the snow, but it was a hassle.

The second reason was that they inevitably got wet (in part because of their love for the snow), and then would stay wet for the rest of the trip.

I switched to a pair of nylon/spandex softshell pants with a base layer. I get the same insulation, but they shed the snow much better and dry much faster.

Anyway, that’s been my experience with wool pants. 🙂