SlowBro - Continental Divide Trail Journal - 2020

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New Project

Rain Pants Project

(Note- I will be blogging on the 1st and 15th each month until April and then I plan to blog weekly until I start my trek at which point I will blog daily.)

Well, I am always tinkering with my gear trying to make it better. And many times I do, but there are some projects that die a quiet death at some point. Hopefully this will not be one of them.

Why rain pants? You ask. Dont you already have a great pair of zpacks Vertice rain pants? Well, yes. And arent they in good working order and super light? Yeah. So why the new project?

Well, to tell the truth, I saw this new waterproof/breathable fabric online and it's even lighter and more breathable than the zpacks fabric. I really wanted to try it out, but the seller was just selling the fabric and not anything made with it. So I decided I could make some rain pants and if that worked, maybe a parka.

I figured I could just copy my existing rain pants and so, as I have done with previous projects, I set out to make a pattern. And, as always, it was hard to do, because I didnt want to take the pants apart. I did the best I could and laid out the pieces to figure the yardage of fabric I would need, calculating I could get by with a yard and a half. At $ 42 a yard I wanted to be conservative.

Yes, this experiment would cost about $ 70 in materials, but if it worked it would still be less than half the price of the commercial version and about half the weight. So I ordered the fabric and some seam sealing tape and waited.

It seemed to take a long time, but the package arrived recently And I was able to get started.

Next time - how I deal with too little fabric...

- Safe Travels my friends...

Entry 3 of 30
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