How to choose hiking pants?
When choosing hiking pants, we need to follow the same principle as when choosing an outerwear. First of all, do not forget to follow the three-layer principle for cold weather. During summer hikes there are not as many requirements as in cold weather hikes. Here, it is important to keep in our minds that we have to protect our legs. In hot sunny weather people usually like to wear shorts, which is not the best idea in the wild nature. Firstly, shorts will not protect you from heat; on the contrary, you risk getting burns from a direct sunlight. This can lead to quite serious health consequences. In thin pants with light colors it will be a lot breezier and comfortable – light colors will reflect the sun’s rays. Besides that, pants protect your legs from injuries. During hiking in the mountains or forests, hiking pants will protect your boots from any dirt, small stones, and insects. Also, hiking pants will protect your legs from getting muddy. It would be great, if a trouser leg would slightly cover the shoes and completely cover their upper part.
It is also advisable to wear hiking gaiters for maximum protection. Gaiters will protect not only your legs, but also boots and pants. Gaiters cost a lot less than pants and boots, and as a rule are made of more resistant materials. This means that they can handle many difficulties.
Hiking pants
All companies specialized in hiking equipment have various types of hiking pants in their assortment. Since there are no high requirements for summer hiking pants, we will highlight several important functions that you need to pay attention to.
- Relatively thin and light color fabric, with thicker fabric in the knee, pelvic and lower leg areas. These areas wear out quicker, therefore need more protection.
- Detachable pants that transform to shorts. These types of pants are very comfortable for resting in the camp or during crossing the river. Also it is good to have two types of pants at the same time, as it is very convenient and budget friendly.
- Pockets, lots of pockets, large pockets.
Hiking pants
If specialized hiking pants are too expensive for you, you can pay attention to military pants as a temporary option. We are talking about military pants created for modern western armies. Their duplicates can be found in local hunting and military stores. These pants will be heavier and less comfortable, but they surely will protect your legs and last for a long time.
Pants for cold weather and mountaineering
Here we will return to the much discussed 3-layer system. We put on thermal underwear, then we wear the fleece or other heat-insulating layer, and the last layer is membrane waterproof hardshell pants. Since our legs freeze less than torso, we need to be careful not to dress too warm. If we dress too warm, we will start to sweat, and then freeze. A combination of thermal underwear and firm waterproof pants is usually enough for winter hiking in Armenia. However, it would be great to have spare fleece pants in our backpacks, to wear them as the middle layer if needed.
Couple of more words about the outer layer of hiking pants:
- As we already know, this layer must be made of membrane
- Water resistance should be at least 5000 mm
On these pants there are zippers along the entire length of the legs, which you can unzip and easily put the pants on or take them off, without taking off your boots. This option is very comfortable, since often there is a need to take this layer off and stay in ordinary pants.
Mountaineering pants can also be filled with feather or another heating material. Such pants are great for passive work in cold weather, for example, fishing, or for climbing high mountains in cold conditions. For example, on Ararat you might need mountaineering pants even in summertime.
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