Episode 199: Technical Pants

Spice:   0:02
Hello, everybody.

Salty:   0:03
Hello, everybody. Welcome to the show. The surprise episode. It's a surprise episode of the Big show. What do we need? May have surprised episode, You know, here we are too long down some North Missouri tiny little blue highway, and we're talking about subjects that my podcast partner doesn't know what the subject is. She knows all about the subject. She just doesn't know what the subject is. So that's a surprise episode, and here we are. You ready for it? Born ready pants, pants, pants,

Spice:   0:36
hiking pants can tell where this

Salty:   0:38
is. A regular technical pants, pants and choices of pants, traces of pants, materials and, ah, couple of the different types of pant materials that we choose. So let's start. She just came back from Big Hike. So let's start by talking about the search and final acquisition of a pair of hiking pants.

Spice:   1:03
First, the my old standby of either camo, cotton hunting pants or genes are both pretty bad choices. So for hiking, I'm I'm leaving those behind, therefore, bugging out Yes, because the reasons they're bad for hiking are the same as the reasons that be bad for bugging out

Salty:   1:24
and what are those reasons.

Spice:   1:26
Primarily, they take a long time to dry. They're hard to wash, so you end up wearing dirty a lot, which is a hygiene issue as well as a looks issue. But mostly when you get him what they stay with, their very uncomfortable when they're wet, they're hard to, ah, get on and off when you need to. When they're what, so they're just not user friendly at all. Once you get him, what?

Salty:   1:55
And also, once you get them wet, I'm going to use her phrase because I think it's funny once you get them wet and you get them wet with something like buffalo dirt, bison, dirt, dirt, bison dirt,

Spice:   2:12
I was explaining to salty Who didn't get to come on this hiking vacation with me? What bison dirt is where you have a lot of bison living on a bit of ground, and they add their own special fertilizer to the soil, and then they churn it up on the game trails with their hooves, especially around the stream crossings, where it turns into a thick muck. What you've got is a bystander. Bison dirt is hard to wash off of cotton cloth and it makes it heavy, and it's kind of like wearing waited bell bottoms that kind of bounce against your legs with every step. But it's very easy to wash off of hiking pants. Hiking pants are made of this artificial fabric. I don't know exactly what the composition is, but it is a rip stop material. It's very lightweight. It's a very a pliable and soft, but most importantly, it dries very readily, and it washes clean very easily. Get some charcoal on it because you rubbed up against a bunch of burned trees, for example. Uh, just for example, get a bunch of bison dirt on it because maybe you mistook that crust for dry ground when you were trying to cross the stream and you ended up calf deep and bison dirt just as an example that could potentially happen to somebody, and her partner would laugh at her. Lots washes right off. All you gotta do is find a better crossing. Walk back calf deep in the stream, walk back out and the pants are basically clean before you can get yourself back to the car, which might be another five miles away. They're dry already

Salty:   4:01
Yeah. Now, the one thing that is important to realize when dealing with hiking pants and biking dirt, if you have a partner like Doc, Issue might want to take your plugs too, so you don't have to listen to her. Okay? The pair of pants that we're talking about is way bought them on a place that starts with an A and ends with Amazon. And, uh, basically, we bought appear. We weren't really concerned about price, even though they really weren't the most expensive. But we bought a pair of that actually fits. We kept ordering pants until we found a pair that actually fit her. Actually, we found a pair pretty early in the process.

Spice:   4:50
Bye, Fitz. We mean Fitz loose enough that it's not only comfortable, but I could fit a pair of lightweight will tights underneath for warmth if I needed,

Salty:   4:59
because these pants are great for lots of things, but they're not warm. Yeah, you're talking. You're not talking about a cold weather pants, you know, you're talking about something you'd have to layer. Additionally, this particular pair is a lot of them do have the zip off legs. She's wearing a pair of them right now with legs ripped off his shorts. And that works well, too, because when you get your pants covered with bison dirt

Spice:   5:26
and you don't wish to track up the interior of your friend's car, well, you can just sit the legs right off before you climb into her car

Salty:   5:34
and they wash perfectly clean sink washing.

Spice:   5:39
Or, if you were on the road and you didn't want to walk into a stream. But you wanted to wash off those pant legs that had the bison dirt autumn, you could take the pant legs off, washing separately and then just reattach him and I have to take your pants off.

Salty:   5:56
Good to know now what? What we did is we finally finally found we found a pair that she liked, and then I bought. I do the shopping, so I bought three more pairs, just like him in different colors, but always paying attention to the fact that you want dark, muted colors for hiking and bugging out, for that matter. But you want dark, muted colors. You don't want red or something that shows dirt base and dirt readily.

Spice:   6:25
Yeah, they do offer a lot of light gray and khaki ones. But they, uh, well, it's a just cosmetic issue and a hiding in the night issue. Should you wish to do that? They're a lot more visible. Family show stains a lot more, but, uh, we just washed them in the sink overnight, and there's a nifty procedure Doc showed me for drying clothes. When you're on the road, she's been in some places where regular laundry service is were not available for extended periods of time. Not very many sets of clothes on hand. You need to get him dry in a hurry because wearing but closes or miserable nous and potentially hypothermia causing. So she showed me a cool trick for drying clothes. There's, ah, gonna be in a pod, not a pod gas. Probably button a little short article on that on the three b y. Sight here sometime soon. So I just finished writing it. So these guys use the quick, dry method she showed me, and they were dry enough to wear in an hour and bone dry by the next morning when I got up just sitting around in a regular room with no particular ah fan or heating or other drawing methods. Even the thick cotton anti friction hiking socks were completely dry by morning. So that's the reason for the hiking pants the rip stop that don't. Even when we were climbing over downed trees and going through ah, pine forests that have all sorts of grabby bits sticking out, they don't grab in stag.

Salty:   8:07
Unlike cotton,

Spice:   8:08
they don't pick up stickers unlike cotton cotton. But my favorite part of him was the quick, dry aspect of it, and they're built to be walked in. So you don't get nearly as much friction when you're walking, either. Those skinny jeans might look good. I wouldn't think so, but then I have no fashion sense. But even if they do look good, they are not fun to walk in for long periods. You get friction in places you don't want friction. So hiking pants, I had, uh, two sets of them with me. That's all I needed for 100 miles of hiking over the course of a week when they were still in in decent shape to be warned. I could have worn him on the plane to come back if I'd wanted to.

Salty:   9:01
So yeah, um, the other option to me. The other option for bug out type technical pants is 5 11 and five. Elevens are just great pants, but we don't actually have any. I don't didn't really fit either one of us particularly well. Now, if we can find a good place to buy 5 11 women's clothing, I'd like to get her a couple of pairs. These the pants that air commonly called tactical pants. They've got basically extra pockets reinforced me some of Mac's that padding in the knees, and that's really Ah, nice pant.

Spice:   9:48
I love big cargo pockets. That's the only thing I didn't appreciate about the hiking pants is they don't have giant cargo pockets.

Salty:   9:55
The five Elevens have a ripstop. There again, they're good technical fabric. Ter easy. They're not as easy to dry as the hiking pants are, but they're a heavier pants, so they're being better a better choice for winter, where so you know, and why do you want to get her a couple pairs when we can find him? But you know, she's a petite woman, and it's pretty specific fit and even low carb 5 11 brands that we've tried that air supposedly for women are basically just men's pants sized to women they're not. They don't fit a woman's form. Um, and she's a fit woman and they fit her fine around the thighs. But the waste is a man's way. It's not a woman's way. So the waist is like three inches too big, and she's not a She doesn't have what's known as an ample bottom. Her precious a normal sized bottom and they just don't fit the ones we tried. So we're still looking for a pair of those. But 5 11 pants are really good. And myself, I I'm an overall sky. But for long hikes, that's not a very good choice. This is not

Spice:   11:18
way too heavy

Salty:   11:18
way to have,

Spice:   11:19
especially when went

Salty:   11:21
and also for travelling through airports and support tress. Yeah, it is, you know, a meddler in someone principal roles. I d'oh!

Spice:   11:29
Can I have the aside today? Sure. Take the aside. The emergency food rations. I took one of those one whole day to 2400 calorie emergency food bar oration packs. That was gonna be part of my emergency kit.

Salty:   11:45
I never thought about it

Spice:   11:46
because we, you know, we were going to some pretty remote places, and there is always a possibility that you don't make it back to the car. Some of those trails I would not try in the dark, partially because there's in woods where we can't see him. And partially because down trees and stuff in woods where we can't see them. Footing was very bad in some places, and it was possible would get caught out in

Salty:   12:12
other words. And before you roll your eyes for the bear, no bears are real thing where she waas Listen, just ah no, beards are a real thing. They're walking past sounds of bears with their cubs and yes,

Spice:   12:25
and the bison can get aggressive if you surprise them too. And so can the moose and the moves throughout with their cows and and moose will trample people if they get too close to their cows. I got within 25 feet of an elk before I noticed it because it was hidden behind a tree.

Salty:   12:42
And here's the thing. That country, they're real, not for decoration.

Spice:   12:46
Yeah, l I don't expect to attack people, but if it was a moose, I would've I would've definitely stayed on the far side of that tree until the moose moved away. But anyway, the wildlife was a real thing, and I didn't want to hike in the dark between the footing and wildlife. I didn't want to hike in the dark in the spots. I knew we might get count caught out overnight. So I was carrying this rations bar just in case. And they spent a very long time on at TSA looking at my bag through the X ray. And I wasn't feeling any guilt because I got nothing contraband in there. But I'm curious as to what the heck they think they're looking at, because it's almost all just dirty laundry and my emergency kit. I had a Sam splint in there rolled up and not so much as a pocket knife, which is stupid. When hiking. I had my friend Doc bring the

Salty:   13:44
She drove.

Spice:   13:45
Yeah, she learned to be a social in me, a pocket knife and and the other stuff that was not TSA approved spray. Yeah, but I had all that stuff out of the bag. By the time I got TSA, I couldn't imagine what they were taken so long. Looking at turns out it was the emergency rations bar. It was so dense and it was foil covered. And it was a little thing that looked like a big fat brick. And they didn't think it looked like food either. So they pulled my bag apart and they got out my rations bar and they checked all the scenes of my commercially produced Roesch Inbar. And then they got a little chemical sniffer for bomb chemicals, and they ran it over the surface of migration bar. And while they never admitted that it was food, they did admit it wasn't a bomb. And they let me go. But you might not be able to get your emergency rations bar through TSA without, ah, hands, hands on inspection. Just

Salty:   14:48
get it in your carry on. She didn't do anything but carry on. Which is the way to go, if you can. Yeah, so yeah. So there we are. It's exciting stuff, right?

Spice:   15:01
The ability to quick, dry, super important. We get caught out in flash thunderstorms didn't stay miserable. The whole hike because we were dry by the time we got back. So quick. Drive for the wind.

Salty:   15:16
They're putting fiber optic cable up this way, Taylor, anyway, pressing on. So there we are pants. You probably shouldn't leave home without him.

Spice:   15:28
Pair of hiking pants are gonna replace the cotton camel hunting pants that were previously in my bug out bag because I'm convinced they're much better choice. And I'm going to include some of the thin but wool tights for one tree is

Salty:   15:46
just And do you have it? There's our thoughts on pants, so until next time, see you.