While I heartily endorse your suggestion of Schoeller Dryskin and similar (earlier this year had a fortnight wandering around high bits of Norway in some ME Liskamms, and I ski-tour in MEC Powershield salopettes), I think Tracksters still have their place, and I still wear mine more on the hill than the soft-shells because on many days all I'll get from the "better" alternative is more weight and more heat than I need.
While it's easy to form the impression that it always rains, actually the case that it often doesn't, or doesn't rain much, in which case the speed of drying one gets from Tracksters is as much rain protection as you need, and if it isn't that cold then there's typically enough wind proofing too. Especially for those of us that tend to overheat rather than freeze, outside of winter conditions there is still much to recommend Tracksters, and it's not just the cheapness. I wear them by preference of finding them best for the job on many days, especially fast moving days or ones where it's warm but not warm enough for shorts, and I have tried and have access to plenty of options.
On to hiking legwear generally, what is it about pockets? Why are we expected to need so many of them? One of the few things I marked the Liskamms down for in my OM review was the completely pointless thigh pocket. Good for you for pointing out more "features" is not necessarily better, though a shame you couldn't point out pockets are a bit over-valued by the marketing departments!
With respect to thigh pockets, I like them, especially on hill trousers. I tend to mainly navigate with a printed A4 map (either Memory Map or a scan of my OS map). This I fold in to a reasonable size and keep in the thigh pocket of my trousers. I find this has several advantages over other systems:
1) I use the map a lot more than if it is in my pack. Important as I now take a lot more interest in navigation since taking my ML. I very rarely now get "locationally challenged", even in very poor vis on unfamilar ground.
2) It doesn't flap around like most map cases when worn on the body or take up a hand most of the time, which is my issue with most map cases.
3) I scribble notes appropriate to the walk on the print out, but do not damage my map.
4) I always know exactly where my map is - right thigh pocket.
5) I can keep a 50K and 25K print of my walk in a very small and light package - each has their advantages.
Similarly I keep a hankie in my left hand normal trouser pocket (I wear glasses, so having a cloth to hand is a Good Thing in British weather). Right hand pocket is for when I have temporarily taken my headband off on days when I suffer cold ears now and again.
Sounds a bit regimented, but if I always keep things like this in the same place I can find them without thinking - important when I am cold, exhausted and not wanting to concentrate 100% at the end of a long day. And it never does to be hunting around looking for something in your pockets or sack when you're out with clients - they'll start to think you're only human and wonder why they are paying you!
Now if you were talking about rear pockets, I would agree. They are either too high to use with a pack or low enough to get everything squashed when you sit down (or both!).
While I can appreciate your scheme for maps, why would it work inherently differently if you kept your folded A4 a little less folded up in a chest pocket, maybe right next to your compass and/or GPS?
If you put on overtrousers you'll lose easy access to it , and if it rains hard and you don't then (a) your map will get soaked and (b) your trousers will take longer to dry out from all the pocket material. Anything much more than a single sheet of paper will start reducing freedom of movement: maybe not much, but why reduce it at all?
I like a hanky in a "normal" pocket too, and some form of handwarmer is good if it's at all chilly, but I don't see much use for mucjh beyond a couple of "normal" pockets.
I like thigh pockets on combats for DIY/gardening etc. as places to keep tools handy, but that's uncomfy walking much. I like extra security pockets for day to day wear, but on the hill my money and cards and keys can just go in the bottom of the sack as I can't see me needing them there...
Well, I haven't yet found a solution for rain and a folded piece of paper! After about an hour I end up with sludge. So if it's raining hard enough for me to use waterproof trousers (which means it must be raining pretty bad) then I resort to the OS map which will be pre folded in my sack, safe within its Ortlieb waterproof case. In more drizzly rain I tend to keep to my soft shells and a paper map tends to last a couple of hours of occasional use (before being swapped with a spare from my sack).
To answer your first question, I guess it would work just as well. GPS is obviously on my chest strap rather than sharing the pocket with compass, so there would certainly be room for a map. I'm certainly not claiming my way is best, just explaining why someone might like thigh pockets. God, wouldn't life be boring if we always agreed on everything! You only have to look at gear manufacturers. A while back, you could rely on Scarpa if you had narrow feet and Meindl if you had wide ones. Same things for clothing - Lowe Alpine always had long legs and arms and ME suited those of us a little less gifted in the lanky legs department. Now more and more of them seem to go for a generic fit, which certainly doesn't work for me. Hopefully, someone will make trousers without thigh pockets for you and with pockets for me. Oh, and I get first dibs on ME making the kit for me, as I have far too much of their clothing already. Whenever I turn up at Plas-y-Brenin, they assume I am staff as I am wearing so much of their sponsor's kit.
And remember to keep your money higher in your sack. My retirement plan is to set up a barbecue at the top of Sty Head Pass and sell bacon butties. I reckon on a good day I might even need to make a couple of trips back down to pick up more supplies. I don't even go to the Lakes that often, but it just struck me as a perfect place for such a venture. Near enough to be able to hike supplies in, busy enough to give plenty of customers and yet remote enough for me to make a very good margin!!!
Unfortunately, gear manufacturers sometimes do agree on everything, and if that's not what you want you're snookered! Getting a good pair of Schoeller trousers without a thigh pocket is remarkably hard, everyone seems to have decided I must want one (in the end I just got a pair that were otherwise okay and I ignore the pocket, but I'd sooner not have spent money on the manufacture of it). Similarly, it's getting remarkably difficult to buy a pair of shoes without a membrane liner, and even if they exist in a manufacturer's range that's not the same thing as finding them in a shop. And so on.
ME still make trousers for folk with wee legs, btw: the Liskamms were the first ones I tried on that were short enough after quite a long search!
"Microfibres ... many are cut in a disconcerting 'dad pants' manner"
This is really what puts me off technical troosers, I look like an idiot in them. Yes, it is sad, but it is does matter to me, especially if there is a day or 2 travel each side of my trip. So I wear a light cotton combat type trouser, which dries quickly but is not ideal.
So if anyone can recommend a technical fabric trouser that don't taper narrowly at the legs (but perhaps allows you to tighten the leg if required), and doesn't have a saggy ar$e, then let me know!
Jason, these are good. They've a lined waistband which makes them especially comfy under a pack, and you can tighten the bottom of the leg if you want. Light, fast-drying, wind-proof, no seams to rub, dark grey, and don't look 'technical' though they are.
I think I've solved my trouser problems for now. I bought a pair of (moderately) close fitting trousers (with thigh pocket) in Spain in the summer. They are light weight, stretchable and a nice short leg length, coming down to over the tops of my boots, yet no risk of them dragging on the floor. Used them in Snowdonia for a couple of weekends now. They fit great, have a WR coating (something I doubted buying them in Spain) and dry out quickly - I went thigh deep in a bog to prove this. And they're all black, no funny technical patches in another colour. And only £25 in the sale, which is a right result if they last at all well.
Having G2s for winter use, I'm not sure the Liskamms would be much use to me as they look a little warm for summer use.
Boy, do I know what you mean about boots. Personally I prefer Gore-Tex, but with wide feet (though a medium width heel), I find it very difficult to get comfy boots. Most gear shops here (London / Surrey) have staff with no knowledge of how to fit a boot and only a very small range of boots (We've three different types of Scarpas and some other boots also for a narrow fit!!!). Try asking for a scrambling boot and you will either get a leather walking boot or a climbing boot, nothing specifically with scrambling in mind. Interestingly, I got speaking to an East European girl in one of them recently and she really seemed to know boots (and understood customer care!!!!!). So maybe there is hope, if the damn shop would stock some variety for her to find more than one pair that approximately meet my needs (light, wide, leather, gore-tex). I went for Raichle Mt Guides as nothing else in any shop came even slightly close, but that's a pure walking boot and wasn't really great for the more technical scrambling. I'll probably go back to my clumping heavy Meindls for scrambling and keep the Raichles for walking.
The more I find out about fitting footwear to feet the more I realise "wide feet" is a gross simplification. Feet can be wide or narrow (and high/low) at all sorts of different points and are a complex 3d shape. I have "wide feet", but specifically (AFAICT!) a wide forefoot (and probably various other rather specific points of difference to other "wide feet". Since Scarpa work very well for me it shows there's rather more to it than just a width, and ultimately one can't realistically expect a shop to carry an exhaustive set of lines that will fit everyone. That's rather different to the same basic fit with a liner and one without from the same manufacturer though.
I'm not entirely convinced a "scrambling boot" means much in an abslute sense... I'll scramble happily in my walking shoes and can't see anything much I'd change about them to be "scrambling specific". if it's not something with foot-jamming I'm quite happy scrambling in sandals. As with your actual climbing shoes, the characteristics you want are about the rock you're on, rather than it being "climbing", so soft and sticky for friction smearing, stiffer for wee positive pockets and ledges, and so on.
The wet paper is easy to sort, this is what I did.
Went to Tesco. bought a laminator for £15 then went to Maplin's electrical where for £7.50 I bought one hundred (yes thats right 100) sheets of laminating plastic. Enough to keep me going for years.
Just print off mapping system or scan and print then laminate. No need for wet pieces of paper.
In relation to the thigh pocket issue, I don't find it all useful. My job have just starting issuing trousers with thigh pockets - ridiculous
To keep my map to hand along with compass, I invested in an OMM chest pouch and it does the job brilliantly. Including holding snacks etc.
I'm with Pete on the issue of pockets and other fripperies.
I just want a pair of reasonably close-fitting, stretch soft shell trousers with simple hip pockets. I can't stand having stuff in thigh pockets; all that continual bashing against the legs and general getting-in-the-way-ness.
I don't want a zipped ankle, because the trousers are rarely the right length, and I can't be bothered taking the zip out to adjust the length. And, frankly, I don't see a great deal of utility in these zips; I'm not likely to take the trousers off without taking my boots off...
The Patagonia Simple Guide Pants sounded good, but they only do them in black and some bonkers red. I just want a mid grey trouser so that it doesn't show the dirt...
As for the microfibre trousers, well, I guess that depends on the microfibre; you can use a microfibre yarn and still make a reasonably sturdy fabric (i.e. it doesn't have to look like Pertex Quantum).
I'm currently using LA Houdinis or Patagonia Fennecs, both courtesy of TK Maxx, whilst still searching for a decent soft shell trouser; BH Stasis too baggy, Ronhill Soft Shell trs only black.
Ha! I have the opposite problem. I think I found a pair of suitable Softshell trousers from TK, but haven't had any decent cold weather to try them in! They are Nike ACG Schoeller and a very close fit but not distressingly so. Cost me the statutory £19.99 for items that TKMaxx don't know how to sell. But so far untested. Bring on the winter...
I picked up two pairs of Women's ACG Schoeller DSE trousers a while back, and sold them on to friends. They were pleased with the flattering things that the stretch fabric did to their bottoms...
I also have a similar pair of mens', but they're far too baggy for me; don't see the point of using a stretch fabric and then cutting them like clown pants.
In my tour of Keswick's shops last week, I looked at a lot of SS trousers, and asked one shop if they had any smaller sizes of the Ronhills. No, but they had these nice ACG ones. I'm afraid I made some disparaging comments about ACG not being able to design their way out of a paper bag (well, judging by my general experience of TKM items, which may not be the best guide...), only to have the salesperson respond by saying how much ACG stuff they sold. I then looked up and saw a huge rack of ACG stuff...
Powerstretch and similar is good, but not always best. Compared to Dryskin it's miles less tough and miles less windproof, for example, which might make a big difference depending on one's routes and the current weather. Dryskin will see off driech better too.
OTOH it's better for other things. My favourite paddling leggings, for a start, and my fave for XC skiing (track rather than heavy tour) too. And moderately fast days in winter it takes a lot of beating.
funny, I have tried an awful lot of trousers recently and there are huge differences in what some manufacturers call small, medium, large etc... Also I find that the wait to crotch fit differs massively for some trousers too. the only trousers that actually fit round me middle bits (all around not just the waist) are Rab stretch and Rab VRs. All the other ones I tried make me feel like me trousers are halfway down me ankles
Hmmm do you find Driskin goes a bit 'baggy' when soaked? Mine seem to. I agree about the wind protection but as I run hot it does not make much difference to me. Horses for courses I guess.
So I wear a light cotton combat type trouser, which dries quickly but is not ideal.
