So let’s get to the point of camping gear, specifically what you need to wear. This is a somehow technical area that is important to understand, and if you are a newby to the outdoors like me, most likely 99% of your clothes are useless at the trail. Reason of this being the materials used in clothes made for the outdoors aren’t common outside this industry, one, they’re expensive due to the process that goes in their manufacture, two, i guess there is no reason to use them don’t use them if you don’t need them. You don’t have t-shirts made with down or Polartec right? This reminds me of a little project i want to do in my closet, that is, i want to separate all the everyday-clothes from outdoor-ready clothes, this will show me how many pieces i still need to buy, which i know i have a long way to go. Just to give you an idea, you need clothes that will keep you dry, warm and cool all-year-round, and the only way to accomplish this is by using specific materials and layering techniques, that means what you wear on top of what.
Basically, your first layer needs to be a wicking layer, this one needs to be fit, close to your skin, so is always drawing the moisture (your sweat) away from your skin, keeping you dry, therefore warm. this is accomplished by a “capillary” properties of the fabric, i’m not going to explain the technical details of how this works right now but just make sure this is your first layer. you can say this is categorized as underwear.
for this purpose i recently bought a long sleeve Mountain Hardwear Double Wicked Lite t-shirt and it works great, plus is reasonable priced! i personally like long sleeve better than short sleeve, it protects my skin better from the elements, specially the sun, oh, and on that note, some of these materials are designed with a layer or coating of some sort that protect your from the sun.
Mountain Hardwear Double Wicked Lite t-shirt
This should give you an idea of what you need first. Next, we will look into the layers you will use on top of that and how to mix and match for optimal comfort under different weather conditions. Also i will elaborate into the technical part of these field.
minimalist dog 