Mountain Equipment Combin Pants

I have had my Mountain Equipment Combin pants for a few years now and thought its about time I got around to writing about them. I had been searching for the holy grail of trousers for walking in the hills for a good number of years, and it seems that I may have found it. Trousers have always been too hot, too cold, got too heavy and cold in the wet, were too hot when you put rain trousers on over the top, stuck to your legs and made you hypothermic, and in general nasty.

Combin Pants- are advertised as Mountain Equipments "lightest year-round mountaineering pant. Equally at home on a high alpine traverse as it is on the GR5." It took a while for me to get over the price of the Combin Pants, the current asking price of £120 is pretty steep, but I thought that to get something really good, you need to pay for it.
So I bit the bullet and found a garment that appears to work very very well indeed.

Combin Pants are made from a Schoeller fabric. That, on its own, should make your ears prick up. Schoeller are renowned for making groundbreaking materials in the outdoor industry, and Mountain Equipment have used it very well indeed here.

Bobbled after a LOT of use.

The material in use here is Schoeller Dryskin Extreme-  the claims are pretty out there. The Scholler website claims it to be"Wind and water repellent, breathable and hard-wearing stretch fabric with functional fibers on the inside for rapid moisture transfer." This is almost too good to be true, or at least, that's what I thought when I first looked at it. Still. If you're going to take the plunge, it may as well be for something you've not tried before as something you have tried and know doesn't work.

Initial thoughts of them were that, yes, they were very comfortable, and yes, definitely stretchy. They may well be a little heavy weight for summer walking, and maybe not warm enough for very cold winter days. However, comfort-wise, very nice. The belt is a flat webbing belt, so it doesn't get in the way if carrying a heavy pack with waist belt, the buckle, again, is designed as flatline as possible, with no protruding nobbly bits to make things uncomfortable, and the closure of the top of the trouser is a very simple and elegant 2 popper affair. They keep them up, and in the correct place for wearing. So the basics are covered.

2 of the zips. Really quite stealth like

It has 4 pockets, which also double as vents. one each on the left and right hip, a deeper one on the lower left thigh and one on the right buttock. They are all zipped (zippers having string attached to them to make for opening and closing easier with gloves etc)- also, as a side note, the zips are of excellent quality. We all know what its like trying to open a zip which has too much or too little friction for the fabric around it- not so here. Perfect functionality.
As mentioned, the pockets act as vents as well, and are very good at their job. You notice when they are open, especially when it is cold. If you are standing in the wind, and you notice that your leg appears to be slightly chilly, I can guarantee that you will have left one of the pockets open. Close it up and the leg instantly gets warm again. Equally, hacking up a hill and legs getting hot- open the pockets and they begin to cool down.
This along with the breathability of the fabric means that I don't think I've ever really had a day when they were too hot- even though they are Black.

In the rain, the cold and the snow of - well, autumn, winter and spring in the UK, again, the Combin Pant excelled. In all but the heaviest shower you can carry on wearing them- to a point, they will repel water, but once they get wet, they dry very quickly indeed. The fabric is windproof to a ridiculous degree- so much so that I prefer them to windstopper trousers simply as they are just as good in the wind, and more versatile as they can be worn when the weather gets warmer. As mentioned before, the only time I got a cold leg in the wind was when I inadvertantly left a pocket open... When it gets really cold, a pair of thermals underneath, and hey presto, they are fine for ridiculously cold temperatures.

The zips on the 4 pockets have never got stuck, the material is robust, its been climbed in, scrambled in, dragged across rocks, brambles, heather, cramponed, etc. and still it works well and has no holes to speak of.

Places to thread your bottom of trouser strings

There are no strings in the bottom of the legs, but there is a hem with holes in should you wish to attach your own. And as this is an all year round garment, there is no internal gaiter- which is perfect for wearing normal gaiters with. (internal gaiters and ANOTHER pair of gaiters on top are a nightmare of sweaty bottoms of legs)- again, the Scholler fabric comes into its own especially when wearing softshell gaiters. I think with that combination I had the most amazing experience of trousers and gaiters without getting hot and sweaty. Astonishing.
Washing is simple, just like any other garment, and when on a multiday hike, because they dry so fast, you can wash them on the go- as it were. Or, like me, just wear them everyday, I hate to say it, but even after a number of days continual wear (I've not counted the days, but it was pretty nasty), they never once became uncomfortable. 
The fit is excellent and the 4-way stretch make them so comfortable to wear its quite unbelievable.
I think the reason I haven't reviewed them before is because they work so well, it hardly seems necessary to review them.

I've used them in the UK across the whole gamut of weather, also multi day trekking in Canada (they were the only pair of trousers I took on a 3 week holiday), Colorado in February, and a whole number of other countries that don't come to mind right now. I've used them for climbing, walking, trekking, scrambling,  and on occasion running.
In Summer, in Winter, for pretty much anything outdoors, (unless it is absolutely throwing it down), this is my choice of pant. Hands down. No question. I suppose I am a bit spoiled now, and everything else I try on has to come up to the standard of the Combins.

I suspect that if Mountain Equipment tried to make these in another material, they really wouldn't work so well, so perhaps this isn't just a review of an item of clothing made by them, I suppose it is also a ringing endorsement of Schoeller and their fabric. I don't own anything else made by them, but if this is a typical example of what they do then I can fully understand why anything made with their fabric is so expensive. Its not a "waterproof membrane" that doesn't live up to expectations, but rather a stretch fabric that exceeds all possible imaginings.
Ignore the price.
Buy them.

(Apologies for the somewhat rave review. I re-read it and I sound like an evangalist for Mountain Equipment. I'm not really, but these trousers are excellent. I thoroughly recommend them- my girlfriend now has a pair, as does my sister, they love them too). No idea if they still make them as I can't find them on the current website, but if you can get a hold of them. Do.

Mountain Equipment Changabang revisited

My Changabang in use in Wales

I have finally got my Mountain Equipment Changabang back. I lent it to a mate for some reason (rainy day?) a while back, and as I had a couple of other waterproofs, let him have it for the duration- his old Helly Waterproof was shocking and was one step away from the bin. (to be honest, it should have been in the bin, but thats another matter).

So, I have my old Changabang back, its bright orange, no, make that BRIGHT orange, and has a hole in the hood where I slid head first down a piste in Japan and is covered in crap. However, thats only because I got it covered in crap before I lent it to him.
Lets see, its now kind of orange, but covered in stuff, the waterproofing has died a death- but only in terms of DWR, the membrane and the taping are both still fine and intact, and the hood is still as good as I remember.

Just a word about the hood system.
Over the past couple of years I have tried on a number of jackets by a number of different manufacturers. Arctery'x, MHW, Rab, TNF, Haglofs etc. None of them have come close to the hood system in the Mountain Equipment range. As an example, I have a MHW Argon Jacket now in my possession, and although it is good, it works well, and it sheds water, whenever I have the hood up, all I can think about is how it just doesn't grip the head, and stay on and around the head as well as a Mountain Equipment hood. With OR without a helmet.

Putting my old Changabang on and putting the hood up was like shaking hands with an old friend. It fit well, it worked brilliantly, and it stayed on my head and moved with it, no matter what I tried to do. (ok, maybe in that respect its not quite like a handshake, but you know what I mean).

So, I grabbed a bottle of Grangers 2in1, threw the jacket in the washing machine, put a couple of cap-fuls in the drawer and turned it on to delicate wash. I should probably point out here that we don't use biological soap as a matter of course, neither do we use washing powder. If we did, I'd have to run the washing machine on a cycle with nothing in it first in order to get the residue out- because otherwise it might damage the membrane in the jacket. That isn't a good thing.

The jacket came out, and went on the washing line, and eventually dried. This is NOT the end of the process. To restore the DWR (Durable Water Repellancy) you have to heat the material. This is why a lot of re-proofers recommend tumble drying the garment before use, but only if the manufacturer recommends that it is ok to do this.
(the reason why some jackets should NOT be tumble dried is because the seams are heat sealed instead of sewn and then taped- if you expose a jacket with seams like that- the MHW Dragon Jacket is a good example if you look at the hood- you end up with a jacket in component parts. Not a good look).

One of the reasons for me not to tumbledry my Changabang was that the care label has looooong since faded away, so I have no idea if it is a good idea or not. Another reason is that I don't own a tumble drier. We do have a hair drier though, so I appropriated it for a while, and used it to heat up the fabric, paying more attention to the areas that get a greater amount of use/abrasion (rucksack strap points etc).

(I was once asked which setting to use a hairdrier on for the best effects... my answer was that I didn't actually know hairdriers had any other settings apart from On and Off).

Anyhow. The Changabang is back. It's not quite as water-resistant in terms of DWR as it was, and although it beads water, it does wet out relatively quickly even though I've re-proofed it. I suspect that a bit more of a heat treatment is needed, so I'll continue to hairdrier it and test it out in nasty conditions and we'll see how it goes.
The main thing is that I have realised is just how shockingly bad the MHW hoods are in comparison to MEQ hoods. My next mountain jacket will most probably be a Mountain Equipment one, and it will be a Changabang if they still make them in a few years time when I need it. However, if anyone has a brand new Mountain Equipment Changabang in a size small that they want to swap for a Mountain Hardwear Argon size small (used maybe twice), drop me a line!

Dark Peak Roving Calendar box- July

Delightful morning out on the hills looking for the Roving Calendar box. I'm not going to reveal the exact location of the box with photos or a GPS track, because that would spoil the fun.
Also, its pretty easy to find this month, if a little more out of the way than in June, it is a truely spectacular area.

After a walk in, with Lynne testing out her new Mountain Equipment Diamir Jacket (I'm sure that I can sit down and write a review of it at some point soon), as the rain came in. The forecast had predicted 70-80% chance of rain, heavy rain, all the way through the day. This turned out to be pretty much untrue and we only had 2 squally showers as we went out onto the hill.
The midges were everywhere near the car, so a fast escape had to be made, but once away from the woods, and as the rain came down, thankfully they died away.

I was testing out an oft held theory that if you have a jacket which is losing its water repellancy, or at least, is losing the beading effect as the rain hits it, don't spend money on re-proofing it right away- heat it. The classic thing is to put the jacket in a tumble drier on low to get heat going right the way through, redistributing the DWR. I had 2 minor problems with this. The first being I don't own a tumble drier, the second being I was doing this to a Mountain Hardwear Dragon Jacket. Not all of the seams on this jacket are stitched, the hood is heat sealed, for example. Put one of those garments in a tumble drier and all of a sudden you have component parts of the jacket instead of a single item...
Always check if you can tumble dry your stuff BEFORE you put it in there.

If, like me, you are restricted one way or the other, the second avenue of re-DWR-ing your garment is to use your trusty hairdrier. (or your girlfriends). Turn it on, and use it as if you were using it to dry the fabric- like you were drying your hair.
I was once asked what setting you should use on the hairdrier- and to be honest, I had no idea they HAD settings, so, not too hot, and not too cold.

During the process, make sure you do not heat the item up so much that you melt it, burn it or otherwise damage it. If you do, its your own stupid fault. Take care. Chances are its an expensive bit of kit (the garment, not the hairdrier) so take care and be mindful when you are doing it.


Anyhow, where was I.
Yes, I was testing this out. I heated up the jacket yesterday, and I have to say that the process seems to have restored the DWR quite effectively. The Dragon Jacket isn't meant to be Water proof- its got Windstopper in it and has a couple of bits of point taping in it, but after the treatment, the rain was beading off the skin of the jacket rather admirably. I'm very happy with the result and will have to suggest it to other people even more emphatically than before!

So we went on up over the moor, a bit of heather bashing, bouncing over the peat, and looking at some rather intriguing rock formations. When we got to the Calendar box location it was pretty easy to find. There were a couple of Custard Cremes in there, so we swapped 2 of them for a geobar, wrote in the book and left it in the same condition as we had found it. I think we were about the 3rd or 4th people to find it this month.
We then took a little detour on the way back to the car, heading up the high point behind the location, and although the cloud base was low, there was a fantastic view right the way across Dark Peak, so far that I don't actually know what I was seeing- probably right down over White Peak as well.

On the way down we also saw a raptor of some sort- low over the bog- it certainly wasn't a Buzzard, it wasn't a Kestrel- and it wasn't a Sparrowhawk.  It was Brown-ish with wings shorter than a Buzzard.
My immediate thought was Marsh Harrier, but on closer inspection, they tend to nest down South nearer Norfolk way. I wonder if it was a Hen Harrier, but I thought they were much more Grey/white.
If you're about over Bleaklow, keep a look out, as they may well be around.