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This is a really pleasant video essay about it: https://youtube.com/watch?v=sz4YqwH_6D0
You're not a painter because you have the best paintbrushes, but because you paint a lot. The best way to become a painter is to start painting earlier.
"Do it in jeans first" - absolutely. But after going nearly hypothermic in my all cotton stuff in the Presidentials on Mt. Mansfield years ago - nice sunny summer day down below, guess what at the top - I went with the program and got synthetic fleece stuff etc.
It doesn't have to cost a mint. As long as you don't care about style, the thrift stores generally have synthetic t-shirts, fleece jackets and pants. Shell pants and especially decent shell jackets are less common but I've found enough there too to keep me covered.
Shell vs. warm core - layering! Assuming you have a knapsack to put the stuff you're not wearing in, if you have fleece pants and shell pants over them, you now have three options. Four, if the shell pants can unzip into shorts.
I've taken a similar approach to the literal problem. Look I've backpacked in Peru and Iceland and spent enough time mountain biking and hiking and stuff. I'm an adequate hiker. There's probably not one sport where I haven't been shown up by someone in jeans or payless shoes. Peru is a great example because when you are hiking the Inca trail to dead womans pass in all your fancy gear there are quite literally locals…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So why would you ever wear them?
Cotton is generally a great fabric if you sweat, because it wicks moisture and breathes. Denim started its life as workwear. However, if you're building up moisture too fast or you just get a bit wet from weather, and you have a lot of friction from walking, your thighs can get chafed to hell. I think it's odd that chafing wasn't mentioned once in the post. I have had it happen before on a day trip in a very humid cl…
> if you sweat, because it wicks
> moisture and breathes.
Cotton is the antithesis of wicking - it holds moisture and chills the skin. It would be hard to find a fabric worse at wicking than cotton. It can hold liquid up to 27 times its mass.
Jeans have no practical application outside workwear, they are purely fashion.
But jeans are terrible in the extreme situations that could happen while hiking, and can worsen the risk of hypothermia if you end up in such a situation, potentially causing death when you might otherwise have endured. Thats why people tell you not to hike in jeans, you don't need 'special' pants, just 'not jeans (or any other pants made from similar wet-trapping materials)'.