How to choose mountain trousers

How to choose mountain trousers:  Legs are among the strongest parts of the body, but they deserve great consideration: walking comfortably, dry and without suffering from heat or cold are necessary conditions to make a mountain trip enjoyable and safe.

How to choose the right mountain trousers?

There is no such thing as a universal model, but one should look for it according to the type of activity one has to perform, one’s physical fitness and the environmental conditions one has to deal with. In fact, it is easy to understand the reasons why an excellent pair of mountain trousers for climbing in the Rosa group would be totally inappropriate for a summer trek in Sardinia. It is equally easy to understand that the fast ski mountaineer who aspires to the summit must necessarily dress differently from the snowshoe hiker who wants to reach a refuge at a slow pace. And vice versa.

How to choose mountain trousers:  THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TROUSERS

These are the parameters to take into consideration when choosing the right pair of mountain trousers.

• Fit: this is the attitude of the garment to fit the person. Some brands have a narrow fit and would therefore be uncomfortable if worn by robust people. The reverse is true for loose fits. This is the reason why clothes should always be tried on: even if you generally wear a given size, you may also need to change size when changing models, or there may not even be one that fits your body!
• Weight: this is related to the weight of the fabric, which in turn is proportional to the thermal insulation. High-quality technical fabrics provide excellent insulation even at low weights.
• Comfort: ability of the mountain trousers to follow the body’s movements. It should always refer to the type of activity for which they are worn.
• Breathability: is the ability of a garment to expel perspiration or water vapour.
• Waterproofness: is the resistance of a garment to absorb water or vapour from the outside. The highest quality technical fabrics are the only ones that combine waterproofness and breathability, guaranteeing dry skin and therefore a feeling of comfort even in the most adverse conditions.
• Drying speed: this is inversely proportional to the amount of water the garment stores when immersed, and therefore also to the weight it takes on when wet. A high drying speed is essential in the case of multi-day treks or variable climates.
• Robustness: this is the ability of the mountain trousers to withstand tears and rubbing wear, a fundamental characteristic for activities such as climbing.
• Technical details: these are called details, but they are often the discriminating factors in the choice. Number of pockets, presence of zips, zips and watertight seams, elephant’s foot, buttons, air vents, drawstrings, reinforcements… all elements that optimise the garment for the activity for which it is intended.
• Colour: the choice of colour is not just a matter of fashion. The dark garment, for example, warms up a lot in the sun and allows a lower grammage than the light garment. The lighter grammage may, however, no longer be appropriate when the sun goes out and the cold weather sets in. Another consideration is that a dark or camouflage colour, which is excellent for hunting or nature study purposes, for example, does not allow easy identification of the hiker in the event of an accident, as well as creating difficulties for the photographer who wants to capture the person.
• Reactions with the skin: there are subjective phenomena that should not be underestimated. For example, certain types of sweat when impregnating certain fibres trigger the proliferation of bacterial strains responsible for bad odours. It is up to each individual to recognise and avoid them: what stinks on one person after a short time, on another person may generate no odour at all. The same applies to itching sensations due to individual reactions. Moreover, the skin of the legs is one of the most sensitive areas of the body.

How to choose mountain trousers:  SUMMER MOUNTAIN TROUSERS

“It’s hot in summer anyway: just wear shorts!”

This is a commonplace among mountaineers that needs to be debunked. Even in summer, in fact, it is not always hot at high altitude, indeed thunderstorms or sudden drops in temperature are the order of the day, so long trousers are a must, at least in the rucksack. In fact, it would even be advisable to wear them for the entire outing if you want to take to high altitudes, limit grazes in the event of a fall, prevent dew from soaking your socks, snow from getting into your boots or to protect yourself from sunburn, insect bites and nettles.

Having said this, the characteristics to which one must pay particular attention when choosing summer trousers are lightness, breathability and speed of drying, all related to the quality of the fabric. In this field, synthetic beats cotton. The fabric weight must be less than 250g/sq.m..

Absolutely avoid dark colours or waterproof fabrics, unless you want to take a sauna. Rather, when trekking in the rain, a waterproof over-pant is useful, which can be taken off when the disturbance ceases.

Interesting is the possibility offered by some garments to be detachable via a zip and become shorts. However, before buying them, it is better to try them on because, subjectively, the zip could be annoying.

Those who plan to cross snowfields or glaciers should always wear long mountain trousers and choose the fabric weight according to the minimum expected temperature for their trip. In the event of severe temperature fluctuations, it will be good to have two pairs of trousers with you: a cooler pair and a warmer pair.

The pockets are very useful accessories, as are the zips at the bottom, which allow you to put on or take off the mountain trousers without taking off your shoes.

For those who want to juggle on the rock, resistance to wear and tear is a feature to consider, as is elasticity. The latter, however, must not be excessive, otherwise there is a risk of the mountain trousers catching on rock ledges.

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How to choose mountain trousers:  WINTER MOUNTAIN TROUSERS

Winter trousers are an armour for the hiker who must protect himself from the cold, snow or rain and from abrasions in the event of a slip, a very common occurrence on frozen ground.

Combining thermicity, breathability, waterproofness and wearability is the technological challenge for sportswear companies. Thermality in fact goes hand in hand with weight, but tends to be inversely proportional to breathability and fit. This means that in order to achieve good compromises, extremely high-quality fabrics, the result of careful research and lengthy development, must be used.

A padded pair of trousers, such as those used for skiing on the slopes, is indeed very warm, but if one were to use them for a snowshoe or seal skin hike, one would soon find oneself sweating and at the first break, with wet legs, chattering one’s teeth from the cold. In addition, for walking, trousers that are padded or made of too rigid material would be uncomfortable.

It is necessary to opt for fabrics of more than 250 g/m², slightly stretchy and allowing ease of movement. Such fibres should also be water-repellent and breathable, i.e. allow you to stay dry even when soaking in snow, but allow the sweat of the legs to be channelled outside. One of the most widely used fabrics for this purpose is SOFTSHELL, which is characterised by the presence or absence of a membrane. In the case of the absence of a membrane, they are usually treated with a finish called DWR (Durable Water Resistance).

In fact, a value often provided by manufacturers to express the impermeability of the fabric is the ‘water column‘, i.e. the height that a column of water resting on the fabric must have in order for the liquid to pass through it (according to Stevino’s law, this height is proportional to the pressure exerted by the fluid on the surface). A winter trouser should guarantee at least a 5000 mm water column (this is the pressure exerted by our weight when we sit in the snow). However, especially among high-performance athletes, there are those who prefer to have trousers that are not very waterproof, but which breathe a lot and dry quickly. This choice is subjective and should be made on the basis of one’s own experience.

The pockets must all be zipped, preferably watertight, so that they do not fill up with snow. The zip slider must be easy to grip, so it should be extended with a lanyard, so that it can be manoeuvred without taking off the gloves.

At thigh height, a longitudinal zip is very convenient, which activates an air intake, consisting of a gusset filled with a very light and breathable fabric, the absence of which would allow snow to enter.

At the bottom of the mountain trousers, a zip with a gusset is needed to adjust the width at the ankle and allow the trousers to pass over the boot, thus preventing snow from entering (those who want to use the trousers for ski mountaineering should always check that the bottom can reach a width greater than the neck of the boot).

Anti-cut reinforcements on the foot, especially in the inner area, protect the garment from ski blades or crampon teeth.

In terms of performance, as already mentioned in the general chapter on choosing trousers, dark colours are inadvisable as they make the garment’s thermal behaviour extremely dependent on solar radiation. In the event of an accident, it is bright colours that are more easily detectable in a snowy landscape.

How warm one needs the mountain trousers is a function of both the environment one wants to go to and one’s own resistance to the cold. Warm people should avoid clothing that is too heavy because they will end up sweating, finding themselves wet and clammy!

One tip is to have 2-3 pairs of trousers of different weights in your wardrobe, in order to pick the right one once you have consulted the weather forecast a few hours before departure.

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