Cold Weather Layering Isn't This Simple... is it?

you ever find yourself waking up in the morning and having no idea what you're gonna wear on a day in the mountains how cold is it how many layers do i have to wear do i bring soft shell hard shell wool polypro in this video we're gonna go through all of that i'm gonna share a couple of principles from my system and give you a couple of ideas and show you some products that i've really enjoyed using over the last few years [Music] norwegian people have a saying i think i butchered that but essentially it means there's no such thing as bad weather only bad clothing and i really like that sentiment but you can go out in any weather we're going to start looking at base layers so a base layer is obviously your next to skin layer the idea is that it keeps your skin dry by wicking moisture away so when you're sweating the base layer the job is to pull that moisture away from you and keep you dry and warm i feel very exposed right now so ideally your basically should be light it should be comfortable it should be warm it should wick moisture away from the skin and it should dry quickly now there's generally two fabrics that i use for base layer and that is merino wool or polypropylene the wall is almost as good as insulating a human as it is a sheep it's very comfortable wool stays warm when it's wet it has excellent wicking properties and probably one of the best parts about wool is that it tends not to smell as much as polypropylene so i can generally wear wool for a week or two without it getting like really rancid whereas a polypro after one or two days it's terrible so being a natural fibre wool is obviously a lot more expensive than polypropylene you can pick up a base layer of poly pro for maybe 30 40 or less but wool tends to push up towards the 60 70 80 100 mark so there's a big difference there and for that reason i like both i'll generally have a pair of polypropylene base layer if it's a multi-day trip because i'll sleep in the poly pro and i'll be using the merino wool as my active layer because that's when i'm sweating that's when it's going to get a little bit dirty and so for that reason i tend to use maria wool when i'm active and polypro when i'm sleeping but you might like to switch that around and just use merino as your sleeping lat because it's more comfortable there's no rules it's totally up to you so this is usually my true base layer my next-to-skin base layer i like to wear a t-shirt this is just a wool merino shirt from decathlon these long johns underneath long pants are from odlo and they're 100 wool as well merino wool base layer doesn't only have to be one layer you can add as many base layers as you like for example if i wanted to put two wool t-shirts on then you can there's absolutely nothing wrong with this you can wear multiple base layers on top of one another now one of the downsides about wool that i have to mention is that it's more difficult to wash it's a little bit fiddly you can't just throw it in with everything else in the washing machine you have to wash it on a colder temperature on a more delicate cycle so if you're someone that's likely to throw everything into the machine then go for polypro there is different weights based on gsm which is grams per square meter on the lower end it's usually 100 or 90 on the higher end it can be anywhere up to 300 which becomes very close to being more like a mid layer this one that i'm wearing right now is from devold and it's a 200 gsm so somewhere between a base layer and a mid layer we tend to think of base layers as just long pants and a long sleeve shirt but there's actually so much more than that when you include socks gloves beanies or a buff the aim of a base layer is to cover as much of your skin as possible with a thin wicking insulating fabric this whole time i've been saying buff but everyone here says boof so that's about it for base layers but i want to mention one more thing and that is to avoid cotton cotton is typically a very average insulator if it gets wet then you're going to be in trouble because it's just going to make you colder it clings to the skin when you sweat it takes forever to dry and it can be very uncomfortable so there's no hard rules but definitely for winter cotton is a no-no okay let's talk about mid layers the idea with a mid-layer is that it traps heat it's an insulating layer it's not anything really technical it's just like a big warm blanket that you put between the base layer and the outer layer so for that reason this is really where you can save some money pretty much anything that's going to trap air is going to be good for a mid layer on the more serious end you have things like down and primaloft and other synthetic field products and then you have on the cheaper end things like fleece and flannel things that you can get from a secondhand store like this this is an amazing mid layer i've got this for like 25 euros from a second hand store it's from salihua from the 90s but like i said this doesn't have to be anything technical just has to trap the heat now if it's really cold and you want to have a more serious mid layer then you can look at either down or a synthetic insulative jacket what i'm wearing now is the therm wrap ul from montbell this is a very very light synthetic jacket i bought this for light weight through hiking so a good time to wear a synthetic mid layer like this is if you're doing a very high intensity activity like you're going for a really strenuous hike or you're doing technical mixed climbing ski touring anything that's going to likely to make you sweat it's probably better to wear synthetic the reason why is because synthetic deals with moisture better so if i'm going to be sweating i'll tend to choose synthetic one of the downsides of synthetic is that it's generally more bulky than down when you compare it down to a synthetic sleeping bag the synthetic is always a lot bigger but synthetic products are constantly improving they're always getting better nature really isn't improving or it's not doing it very quickly so synthetic i would say in a couple of years is going to be far superior to down in a lot of ways now we could weigh up the pros and cons of down versus synthetic all day but realistically this is horses for courses each different adventure each different set of conditions is going to demand a different jacket in reality so let's take a look at my down jacket and when and where i use it this is my down jacket i've had this since 2014. this is from malkowski it's a polish mountaineering brand so down tends to win over synthetic for a number of reasons pound for pound it's lighter apparently it packs down smaller but i think some of the newer synthetics are getting better at that generally down is considered to be a lighter warmer option so the structure of the down it's loft like how much it expands to be able to trap heat tends to be more effective than synthetic so for that reason if it's really cold i tend to wear down the disadvantage of down is it doesn't handle moisture well at all if you're going into a really wet environment where you're likely to get absolutely soaked like tasmania or scotland probably wouldn't be wearing down i'd go for something synthetic another side of down is that it's expensive it comes from animals it has to be pulled directly from an animal in some cases from a live animal so i really recommend looking into ethical down sources by-products of the meat industry rather than live plucking that is horrendous okay when it comes to pans and mid-layers this is always a tricky one but honestly for me i don't think i've ever worn a mid layer on my bottoms when out in the mountains because i'm generally being very active i don't own down pants i don't own any sort of synthetic pants i'm either just never in cold enough environments or i'm being so active that it's just not necessary because i'm pretty warm anyway so what i tend to wear on my bottom half is somewhere between a mid layer and an outer layer and that is soft shell soft shell in winter is surprisingly useful you would think that it would absorb moisture from the snow but it really doesn't i mean unless you're going to be sitting around in the snow all day i think soft shell is absolutely fine i've been wearing soft shell pants for years and i've never had any kind of issue in the snow sometimes if it's quite warm i'll just wear the soft shell but if it's colder i have a base layer and then the soft shell over the top now there are certain situations where a soft shell is not really going to be enough for example if the snow is really wet if i'm going to have a long day in the snow you know going skiing sitting in a chair lift soft shell isn't really the best for there i would tend to go for a hard shot same thing goes for really wet conditions if it's going to be raining if it's going to be sleet if it's going to be any kind of wet snow then i'll tend to go for a hard shell which is supposed to be a waterproof layer but as you know it's not always 100 waterproof for spring and summer hiking i've experimented with just using a base layer polypropylene tights and forgetting the ray pants entirely and i've also done another 500 miles bringing a light pair very cheap rain pants that cost me 10 euros and i can say from that experiment that it is worthwhile just keeping a light pair of cheap rain pants at the bottom of your pack just in case but it's not going to be enough for much colder weather so in that circumstance i'm going to be wearing this which is a hard shell these are from cortazu i also have the matching jacket it's like the closest thing that i owned to a suit i wore this jacket on my through hike of the gr11 and i was super stoked with it this won an icebow award a european outdoor industry award a couple of years ago so i believe it won award for its breathability but at the same time it's waterproofing capability and this is not gore-tex this is another breathable waterproof membrane so this has been my go-to outer layer for quite a while whether it's skiing ski mountaineering you know i've used this for hiking or at least just the top i wouldn't hike in an outer hard shell on the bottom i'm sure that would just be like a sweat fest straight away but this has really become my favorite jacket unbelievably waterproof unbelievably breathable and it has all those features that i like plenty of pockets a helmet compatible hood the only thing it doesn't have is pit zips under the arms that would be amazing pretty much the only thing i don't like about it so obviously your outer layer is designed to keep you dry it should be windproof as well because really wind is one of the most important things to avoid if you want to stay warm there are quite a few jackets on the market especially from brands like north face that are moving more in the fashion direction and they have both outer layers and mid layers built in but those kind of jackets really don't work well with a layering system because they're trying to do two things at once you want those layers to be working together to give you the best possible solution you want it to be adaptable and if need be you want to be able to put all of those layers on at once in the worst possible scenarios so it's no use having a gigantic mid layer jacket that you can't get on the inside of your outer layer so to sum up my system looks like this base layers generally will often multiple base layers on the bottom i tend to use polypropylene on the top i tend to use wool and i try and use wool everywhere else for the mid layer i tend to never wear mid layers for pants instead i opt for a soft shell but i don't often wear a soft shell on my upper body because it's neither really a good mid layer and it's not really a good outer layer on the top i tend to wear either fleece down synthetic or even flannel anything that'll trap the heat in remember it doesn't have to be technical and it doesn't have to be expensive on the outer layer is when you tend to spend the most money it's the most technical aspect of your layering system so remember this is always subjective i don't have anything set in stone i choose my clothing based off the weather and i build this knowledge based on experience i'm not taking it from a book i'm not taking people's advice i just get out and do and see what works and i encourage you to do the same that's all for this one hit me up with questions in the comments section thanks for watching i'll see you on the summit [Music]

Channel: Chase Mountains

Views: 708,986

Keywords: layering for cold, cold weather layering, layering winter outfits, layering for winter, backpacking layering system, skiing layering system, hiking layering system, winter hiking laying system, layering mistakes, hiking layering mistakes, cold weather layering principles

Id: 8-oTIFDS33U

Length: 12min 12sec (732 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 11 2022