Post-Trip Assessment of Lightweight Gear for Long Distance Hiking

Roger:

I am interested in your experiences with the GoLite windshells, Wisp and Whim. You said the jacket did not have sufficient DWR, but the pants held up fine. It is my impression that they are made with very similar fabric and DWR. You did not comment on the quality of the DWR in your review of the pants.

Is it just that a more effective DWR is necessary for the jacket than the pants? Can you enlighten? Thanks.

Franco – Just bumped into this thread – I also swear by the Icebreaker 120gsm Tshirts – I wear mine non-stop on 8 day trips with no smell, but a few salt stains from sweat!!

Re underpants – I discovered Xstatic with silver thread – these are fantastic – also wear non-stop with no smell. Get the boxer style. I got my from Mountain Designs here in NZ.

Hi Matt

Missed your question entirely – sorry. maybe I was away.

No, the Whims and the Wisps are made from radically different fabrics. The black pants are a polyester with a wee bit of carbon fibre included in the mix – or so they claim. They came with a reasonable DWR coating already applied. They do repel water a fair bit.

But the windshirt seems to be just a (ultra) light nylon fabric with almost no DWR at all. Sure, it stops the wind, but that model are well-known to be very poor at repelling water. OK, why didn't they put a good DWR on the fabric? No idea – sorry.

Cheers