Backpacker Magazine – Fall/Winter Gear Guide 2011

Gear Review: Helly Hansen Dry Revolution Pant

by: Nancy Prichard Bouchard

Tags:
• Apparel
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In cold weather—even when we’re working hard—we always wear hard or softshell pants to block the wind and keep us dry. Underneath, we want the lightest tights we can find, with superior wicking, great stretch, and quick dry times, and the Revolution nailed it better than any tights we tested.

Made of 97-percent polypropylene (the rest is elastane for stretch), “these lightweight tights pack down to the size of a mango and weigh far less,” says one tester who wore them under a hardshell while climbing three Colorado Fourteeners. Another tester in California ran and skied more than 250 miles in these tights while training for half-marathons. “The seamless construction hugs without any hotspots, even in the waistband,” she raves.

The textured face fabric has sufficient pizzazz for these to be worn alone, but more modest testers wore them under loose-fitting shorts or longer tops. On a five-day Colorado hut trip, the pants got stinky (like polypro is known to do), but our tester rinsed them out at night. “They hang dry in less than an hour next to a fire,” he reports.

Tradeoff: The super-stretchy tights fit like a second skin, which boosts layering and wicking, but tight ankle cuffs prevented testers from pulling them up as clam diggers on hot afternoons.

$60
4 oz.
m’s M-XL
w’s S-L
hellyhansen.com


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