Bushcraft Outdoor Clothing & Layering

[Music] hi there guys it's Mike from mcq bushcraft here and welcome to another video in this video we're gonna cover clothing and I brought with me today clothing the side wear and I'm out doing bushcraft skills or maybe I'm hunting as you've seen me do many a time on the channel or maybe I go abroad somewhere and I'm out in open wilderness obviously here in the British Isles we get loads of rain it's a very damp environment in a respect not humid but very cold the vamp really gets into your bones so it's something that you really have to take into account we get temperatures in the summer ranging for mid to high twenties very rarely in the 30s but it does happen and in the winter normally - five maybe -7 it can go as cold as minus 15 degrees that usually happens if I go to the Lake District or even into Scotland and you go up in altitude a little bit and you have a windchill factor and that does exacerbate things and makes it feel much colder than it really is so we're gonna have a closer look at each layer and I'm going to start with what's closest to my body and work my way outward let's start with socks and you can see they're very thin socks they're not particularly thick at all my boots offer me the majority of my thermal protection on a mountain they protect me from the damp as well I wear haglöf high leg leather boots and I'll go over those in another video but they're an excellently I've worn them for over a year very frequently and they're still holding up very good and they're very comfortable with a sock like this and these are merino wool and I have many pairs of them and these are the socks that I wear all year round I don't wear thick socks at all they offer me quite a good degree of thermal protection but also from a hygiene perspective wool is very very good at dealing with odors and bacteria and generally you'll find that moisture wicks away and evaporates off of wool very quickly because of its water suspension property it has lots of air pockets in the fibers and naturally so firmly it's very good it's also very good at drawing quickly too cotton is a fabric that I rarely ever will never wear outdoors it's um some people call it the death cloth because the scene is cotton absorbs sweat and moisture it will work against you and it will just freeze you like a refrigerator it's um it's really not something you'll you should wear at all if you're going out and you're doing anything active if you're stationary it's not a problem very comfortable fabric but if you're all active it'll get soaked through and so you really want to share to that cotton layer but I've got on very well with socks like this and I generally carry one spare pair with me in the bottom of my pack all the time and when I go into a long trip so I'm camping out if I'm out for a week I could carry a couple of spare pairs of socks and rotate them very quickly and they can even be washed and wrung out and dried by the fire and they dry very fast I do have some thicker socks behind me as you've probably noticed very thick hundred percent wool socks but these are what I wear in bed these are actually a part of my sleep system and when it gets really cold my sleeping bag then requires some assistance to make it better and I wear socks like this and they become a part of my sleep system well I wouldn't carry lots of pairs of these just one pair because they're any worn in bed when it comes to boxer shorts or underwear I wear these synthetic wicking boxer shorts now first off these will not be as comfortable or as efficient when dealing with hygiene as merino wool merino wool will be better so if you can afford to get merino wool as your initial layer that's closest to your body I would strongly advise it because it will serve you better in the long run the garments will last longer and they'll be better dealing with your odors and also the elements in terms of warmth and all the rest of it but it tends to be expensive merino wool so initially this sort of equipment can be quite affordable if you're just getting into it and you don't want to shell out loads of money because you're not sure whether you'll like it you go into any Sport Shop and you can pick up wicking underwear like this even wicking t-shirts which I'll show you momentarily and they are designed to draw the sweat away from your body the moisture and then it evaporates away so they generally dry very quickly if they get wet from sweat on your body they can be washed as well very easily on the trail and dried via a thermal wall really quickly but this is generally a polyester and elastane mix to give it flexibility that's what the elastane does and most of your wicking material will be a polyester based fabric so this is the t-shirt that I wear always wear a t-shirt quite close to my body again from a hygiene perspective it's that initial layer that's going to take the most of the brunt from your body it's far easier to rotate a t-shirt than it is a secondary layer or even a third layer on top of that this is a British military wicking t-shirt same material as the boxer shorts I showed you a wicking material designed to take moisture away from your body and then it can evaporate very quickly there are other technologies out there now they that have silver woven into the fabric that stop bacteria you know feasting on the sweats that you produce producing asses which is essentially how the odors are produced so there are clever technologies around but my advice would be to stick with the merino wool because it is a natural fiber and is a lot better really so those are the layers that are closest to my body and they're the layers that are really going to suffer the worst when it comes to hygiene you'll find that they will have the shortest lifespan out in the field out in the wilderness or even out on short stints or camping they will smell the worst quickest so I generally carry a spare set of all of this minimum at the bottom of my pack but we'll get into that at the end of the video I'll show you what I carry but we're going to move on to base layers now and base layers come into play when the temperatures start to drop and you need something in between your underwear and your mid layer so what I've got here is a base layer and we've got a trouser part like a pair of long johns and we've also got a zipper pie neck long-sleeved top and I generally wear layers like this when the temperature drops and it starts getting very cool so having a base layer on just gives you a bit of defense from that cold it provides you with some good insulation base layers are very variable things some are referred to as active base layers that are designed for strenuous activity wicking water away from your body drying you off and also cutting down on windchill but mine aren't designed for this strictly and more for thermal protection I've worn leggings like this in fact these exact leggings when I've done very active things to try them out and it's very restrictive and I don't like that at all I'd rather just have my poly-cotton bushcraft trousers on and I only generally carry one set of these on me I sometimes carry two tops but on the trouser side of things I normally only carry one pair another base layer that I have is this rather large one here this is called the Nucky Iceman and the nookie Iceman is a full length base layer it goes from just below the head all the way down to your feet and it's designed specifically to go under dry suits but I use it as a base layer when it's too cold for my sleep system and this keeps me really warm then and that with my thick wool socks and a hat is a brilliant addition to a sleep system to basically allow you to do very cold conditions so it's a really good piece of kit I really like it it's polyester synthetic you've got a lot of pockets pockets at the top here you've got hands pockets just at the bottom there and there and on the feet you have these straps here that wrap around your feet to stop it riding up on you when you're walking so you can wear it underneath your normal clothing and if I was sitting at a camp and it was really bitterly cold and windy and I was freezing I'd put this on as I have done before and it basically allows you to stay very very warm I very rarely ever use it the temperatures really have to warrant taking it in my opinion or Isis just taking up too much room so those are the base layers that I use and the most common part of the base layer that I use is the top of this base layer here and I often use that as a mid layer as well and that's something that you might hear use a lot a term mid layer what you use is a mid layer well people use mid layers in all different ways I mean mid layers can go over the top of base layers you can wear a mid layer just as it is as a garment you can even wear a mid layer underneath this Bush shirt here I've got a mid layer on underneath this so you can see this fleece here this regatta fleece this is my mid layer I'm wearing underneath my Bush shirt which is my outer layer when I went to Swede and I bought myself a nice mid lab I bought a 5-11 fleece which was gonna be a mid layer for me it elasticated up around the wrists and waist and neck so it kept the warmth in that's very good for a mid layer guess what you really want it to do but unfortunately that fleece lasted all of four months now it's just fallen to pieces all of the shoulder padding came off it all just fell apart it looks terrible so that's an expensive fleece to spend your money on for it to fall apart in four months so I wouldn't recommend buying that one but there are a lot of mid layers out there and if you're looking for a good mid layer what I suggest you do is think about how that mid layer will pack down in your backpack because clothing takes up a lot of space it's really important but you want it to be as efficient as it possibly can be so mid layers are something to think about but try and tie them in with your base layer as well and that way you're killing two birds with one stone and it can work in your sleeping bag I suppose really this shirt could be a mid layer I wouldn't technically classify it as one and this is a fee Arvind Bush shirt and in some climates they're very useful in my climate not so much he will see me wear these in some of the older videos I actually quite like wearing them in the summer they're really useful in the summer if you want something that's long sleeved maybe the temperatures fluctuate maybe it could be a bit damp in an outer layer like this over a wicking t-shirt could be useful for you but I generally wear these de pepper I look out the window in the morning what's the weather like okay I might wear this today but it's not something I packed with me if you understand my logic we're getting into outer layers now things that you wear is like your main garment on the outside of your body that get exposed to the elements and they generally have to be quite tough I usually opt for wool wool is a great fabric because we've discussed very good firmly if it gets wet it's very good with water it dries pretty efficiently and there are synthetic fibers that will outperform it as well these days but as far as a natural material goes it's really efficient and its longevity is brilliant I find this shirt here to be really efficient I've had it for a long time and the company makes this a called Swan dry and they're based in New Zealand and they do a range of Busch shirts they've been making them for years they used to do quite a range of colors not so many anymore but they still do some good Bush shirts and a lot of them they they treat with this particular type of oil to make it waterproof say the water just beads off of the shirt you'll see me wear this almost all year round it's good in the summer if the temperatures aren't too hot and it's pretty good in the winter too especially if it's warm with a good mid layer or base layer to give it some thermal value because it is a bit open and exposed and also worn with a large jacket a waterproof jacket because it rains here a lot where I am in the British Isles but a nice shirt this is a much more heavy duty version of this bush I've got on and this is a garment again made by Swan dry this is their waterproof wool so it's treated and the the rain beads off of it it does have a saturation point though obviously if you're out in torrential rain this is gonna get very heavy and very wet it'll still be warm because it's wool but it will be very heavy and wet and you obviously will lose some of its thermal value so you won't be quite as warm as if it's dry but it has one pocket it's just a long smock that goes over your head its line so that itchy wil doesn't come into contact with your body but that lining actually helps firmly - you've got a hood and it laces up you've seen me wear this in a range of videos mainly while I'm out hunting if I go hunting and it's a really cold day and it's a bit damp and the rain is on and off because sometimes it rains then it stops rains and then it stops something like this is perfect you don't get wet because the water beads off of it then you stay warm and because it goes over your kidneys and your waistline and comes down to your thighs your thighs are pretty big muscles in your body and they emit a lot of heat so keeping them warm with something long like this is actually really beneficial and you really do notice it and you can put a belt around it too and hang your knife and gear on it as well so this is a really nice garment I like this one but the only disadvantage is it's huge and it does not pack down small let's briefly move on to trousers but don't have different pairs of trousers I just had really wear one pair and that's the ER Arvind vid approach and that's the only trainer I've really been wearing for a long time a good trainer it's a poly-cotton so it's about 80 percent polyester 20 percent cotton there are a lot of poly cotton trousers around they generally come with a lovely waxed coating on them when you buy them then they're really starchy and stiff and when you go in a bit of rain you'll see it beading on the surface of your trousers and you'll know that they're keeping you dry what I'd say is hold off washing them for as long as you can just sponge them down if they get a bit muddy don't just shuck them in a washing machine because you'll lose that waxing very quickly the way to put it back more efficiently would be to buy their wax block or to be honest you just make it just get some beeswax and some candles make your own wax make a block of it rub it in as everywhere as much as you can and put as much on as you think you'll need if you're in a very damp environment you can go heavy on it if it's nice and dry and warm and humid you don't want so much of it at all especially if it's humid because it'll make you sweat a lot you're very comfortable but once you've done that you can put it in a tumble dryer and leave it in a tumble dryer on a fairly low heat and what happens is is it melts the wax and warms it up and it spreads through the fabric and when you take them out they'll be fairly close to what they're like off the shelf but they're great trousers they're hard wearing they dry really fast and that's the reason I like them because they dry quickly they've got a lot of pockets as you can see on the side and one thing I definitely always use with them is knee pads you can see in the trays are there you have a pocket under their double layered because your knees get a beating when you're out all the time especially on cold ground and damp ground it really gets into your bones your d damaged later on in life you need to protect yourself one thing I really like about these trousers as well is they fastened up around the ankle meaning I can wear them high on my boot so they don't get saturated in damp grass so I like these trousers they're solid I know if you are open do a whole range of trousers with elastic and all kinds of stuff I'm just not interested in that I'd rather it be hard wearing I very rarely ever wear waterproof trousers but sometimes in this country the rain is torrential and in certain parts of the country it's much heavier than others so if you for example went to Dartmoor or if you went into the Lake District it rains there quite a lot and it can be very heavy and rain for a long time so just going there thinking I don't need waterproof trousers can be a bad idea because if you're out in the woods or in the wilderness for day after day after day after day there becomes a saturation point where your trousers despite being able to dry quickly and fend off a bit of moisture will be soaked and you won't be able to dry them because in soaking wet weather that's continuous it's better to just keep your clothes as dry as you can rather than just get them soaked and try and dry them by fire when you're drying your clothes by fire because they're soaked something went wrong that's generally what that means it means something went wrong so try and keep them dry is the key if I was going somewhere and I suspected the rain would be tremendously heavy I would not just rely on my long smock there to protect me because that only goes just above my knee the rest of my leg can potentially get soaked especially if you leave the woodland and you're traipsing through long grass or you're walking in you're out collecting materials for a long time you're just getting exposed to rain constantly and it becomes really uncomfortable so I wear these cheap and expensive waterproof trousers I don't even know who makes them have a look spray way as he makes them they're just elasticated they go over the top of my fury vans they unzip on the leg as well like that so they can go over boots and they pack down really really small they can crush up just like that and go into the bottom of a backpack or you can fold them make them as flat as possible so packing space is more efficient so if I do have to take waterproof trousers and I generally just pack something like this and I actually really like these as well they're very efficient my main jacket that I wear is this Ridgeline Bushmaster smock and this is the jacket just here you see me wear this in lots and lots of different videos I have it in Sweden as my main garment I wear it when I go hunting quite a lot and when I go into camping it's a great piece of equipment really and Ridgeline make a lot of different garments they make loads of different things they're fleeces they're very efficient as well they do some really good waterproof leases and mid layers if you want to get yourself a good fleece you can have a look at some of their stuff that they do but this is a very similar to an older product that they did called the monsoon which is a very popular jacket the only complaints I ever had about the monsoon were its breathability if you did anything active in it for any long period of time you get very warm and the sweat would literally be running along the inside of the jacket and this is where this jacket differs quite a lot from the monsoon it has the same waterproof rating of 10,000 but a breathability rating of 10,000 as well so it's designed for the heaviest of downpours but it has a very very high breathability rating as well so it's good for active conditions too it's not padded it just has a wicking layer on the inside here to keep the waterproof material away from your body but other than that it packs down really small and it can be compressed up and put into a pack if not needed and carried as part of your kit especially if you don't want to carry waterproof trousers because you're not expecting downpours just just rain and wind something like this is ideal it's got toggles around the way so you can draw it in close to your waist it's got hand warming pockets with waterproof zips just at the base of the jacket and you also have a zip up the side as well which helps with maneuverability you can zip it down or unzip it if you're moving your legs a lot we've got a large zip pocket on the chest useful for maps or even binoculars quite easy to access to we've got a storm flap here that pop is open YKK zippers you can cool down a bit as well under the arm with a mesh that you can unzip and if we turn this over you can see underneath these poppers we have a hood and the hood can just come out of here and go over your head and it has a wireframe in it so you can shape it to make the peak a suitable shape to drip the rain off it also has toggles as well so you can draw it in in a nice material on the inside that keeps you nice and dry and wicks the moisture away from your body also keeps moisture off of you one feature I quite like is the neoprene cuffs on the inside these make it really comfortable and it fans out the weather as well nice and warm and you have an outer cup too that you can do up even tighter I really like this jacket we've gone with it very well been very impressed expensive jacket cost me a lot of money Fawcett is a treat to myself after my wedding before Sweden I wanted a decent jacket to take out there and I've given it a run for its money and I'm really happy with it it's really good machine washable too so that's all of the main clothing that's all you wear but what about extremities extremities are things like your head - your neck your hands and your feet boots I'll cover in another video as I've said in terms of the head I've got a woolly hat on this is a Arvind woolly hat I wouldn't really say you have to get fewer of and you can get any woolly hat but a good woolly hat will stand you in good stead especially in my part of the world you need a woolly hat almost all year round even though you won't wear it in the summer when you go out and you camp at night sometimes it can cool off and a wooly hat will really help keep your body temperature up my neck sometimes you'll see me with a buff this is a fleece-lined buff and I generally don't carry this if I'm backpacking or going out into the wilderness in another part of the world for example it would be something that I just wear while I look out the window at the start of the day maybe if I go out hunting or something like that I will wear the fleece line buff because they're really comfortable even though it doubles up as a hat if it's cold generally you need both so carrying two buffs wouldn't really work for me but one thing I do carry is my shemagh quite a big piece of fabric very multifunctional I've covered this in my kit video good as a towel goes with hygiene quite well absorbs water very nicely and dries very quick too and it can be hung up and it's nice and thin as well so the air can cut through it and dry it off but I would say that this would be more multifunctional than the buff obviously King is used as a scarf and many other things as well so I always carry one of these they're really useful in terms of gloves are used seal skin gloves and seal skins are really comfortable I find them to be a very effective glove I've used the 511 flight gloves I've also used the mechanic gloves both have good dexterity but when it comes to water they absorb water and your hands start to get cold so seal skins for me have been a been an excellent glove so far I'd highly recommend them I have my backpack next to me and if we open up the pack I'll show you what I carry I have a mesh sack a rectangle shaped mesh sack like this and it's got a drawstring on the end and I always carry minimum this is minimum one spare set of underwear which consists of socks 100 percent more socks underwear boxer shorts a t-shirt I always carry one spare mid layer or base layer top very rarely the trousers because as I say they're super restricting and I don't really like them and it's really about the call and that's what I carry my hat my shoe mark or scarf and my gloves are also always carried in my pack but they're generally in a different place my hats usually in my pocket my gloves are in my pocket my scarf is in a slightly different place but these are always packed right at the bottom of my pack and I keep them in this sack here and I can actually fill this up with another set as well so I can have two or three sets of underwear two or three sets of t-shirts two or three sets of socks and I always just carry one mid layer just like that at the top there but that's usually how I carry my clothing and I can press this down but it right at the bottom of my backpack but obviously it could get wet if I was on a canoe or something and I fell in this would get soaked so at the bottom of my pack it's not always in use but it's always at the base of the pack I have a forty five liter or leave dry bag for example if I'm in an environment that's super damp or it's really raining heavily and I'm just worried about my clothes maybe picking up a bit of moisture they'll be in the dry bag along with my sleep gear and then that will be compressed down in any food and pots and pans will just go on the outside of the dry bag because generally I don't mind too much if certain things get wet because usually in packets so that's how I carry my spare clothing and as I say it's always at the bottom of my backpack even if I get it for a day I usually have one spare set just to get used to the weight it's not that I will necessarily need it I just like to carry what I would normally carry realistically because for me it's good exercise it trains you up a bit to get used to weight when you actually get out now you do a track you're not suddenly putting this pack on thinking oh my god it's waste a lot anything I'm going to be able to do these five or six miles or however far you've got a hike so I hope this video has been useful for you guys clothing really is very important not only does it protect you from the elements it's your first line of defense but it gives you confidence and that's a really important thing if you have good gear that you rely on you can trust and that you can put on and you've got a system that works and all these layers can be put on you can carry spare equipment in your pack then you can go out whatever the weather depending on where you live and how you've prepared you can go out whatever the weather and feel confident and be protected from the elements and then you can enjoy the outdoors all year round instead of just waiting for good days so for me clothing is really important you can see that some of this clothing is expensive and it's taken me a long time to get some of this gear I know people probably say in the comments section I've been given it all I'm sponsored I'm endorsing it I'm selling it all to you but that's not the cheer I'm not sponsored by anyone I was sponsored very briefly by Yerevan while I was in Sweden and they gave me a pair of trousers and a shirt but even that fell through and you know there were some issues with that and then it all sort of became a little bit complicated so the reality is is a lot of this stuff I buy with my own money Swann dry were kind enough to send me this for free it's Bush shirt this long smock and I'm really grateful for that because I've always wanted one and if I was gonna go out into the wilderness and live feral for a while this is what I would pick and mainly just because it's gonna give me a lot of different things a lot of different options and it's really robust I've torn it through brambles walk through bushes with it in this place is riddled with brambles you can't help but get torn apart by them and this thing just seems to just keep going and it's been great in heavy rain too and it's warm you could sleep in it so you're gonna get a lot of it and it'll probably last for years and years and years because it's a natural fiber and it's tightly woven so clothings super important I wouldn't just go cheap and buy things that are gonna fall apart you might as well buy something good once and then have it forever rather than by lots of multitude of cheap stuff like this stuff here this is cheap and it won't last very long and when you dry it and you wring it out you hear it all cracking and tearing this sort of fart of fabric does not like being wrung out some does some dozen you just have to gauge it but if you bought merino wool it would last a lot longer and be better even though the initial cost is more so clothing shouldn't be overlooked and I hope this videos helped you out this is just the stuff I were you might live in a different part of the world if you've watched my channel for a while you'll see me out in a range of weathers and you can gauge that based upon what you've seen so I hope this videos helped out thanks again for watching guys really appreciate it see you very soon in another video take care

Channel: MCQ Bushcraft & Wilderness Life

Views: 161,627

Rating: 4.9366217 out of 5

Keywords: mcqbushcraft pants, bushcraft and outdoor clothing, mcqbushcraft trousers, outdoor clothing, Outdoor Clothing & Layering, mcqbushcraft clothing & layering, bushcraft clothing & layering, bushcraft clothing systems, mcqbushcraft clothing, Bushcraft clothing, mcqbushcraft jacket, bushcraft clothing uk, best bushcraft clothing, mcqbushcraft boots, mcqbushcraft gear, summer bushcraft clothing, best outdoor clothing brands, winter outdoor clothing, winter bushcraft clothing

Id: aDGmMhqn-4s

Length: 29min 22sec (1762 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 10 2017