Finding Hiking Pants That Fit

Much like finding the right hiking boots or shoes, choosing the right hiking pants means doing a few “fit tests” to simulate the conditions you might encounter on the trail.

What Makes Hiking Pants Special?

You’ve probably been trying on pants for most of your life — so what makes hiking pants any different? Although hiking pants definitely earn a few bonus points if they look good in the mirror, their first job is providing a level of comfort and function that your day-to-day pants won’t offer you on the trail.

In particular, a good pair of hiking pants will:

• Allow extra range of motion for scrambling, high-stepping and otherwise making your way over obstacles in the trail.
• Have light padding, and/or strategically placed buckles and snaps, to help prevent chafing or rubbing from your pack hip belt.
• Have a water-repellent coating, or dry quickly, or at least not hold water against your skin, where the moisture can chafe and chill you.
• Cover key areas so you’re not accidentally mooning others when you bend over or, even more importantly, not getting chilled as you shift position.

Some hiking pants also have zip-off legs so you can convert them into shorts, or ankle zips to make it easier to take the pants on and off without removing your footwear.

Always try before you buy

Most dressing rooms are built to help you find something that looks good. The secret to finding pants that also feel good on the trail is to do a series of undignified things inside the dressing room, sussing out how the pants will perform when put to those challenges on the trail.

If you’re planning on wearing these hiking pants with any sort of a base layer, wear that base layer while trying the pants on, or try on a base layer from the store at the same time. You’d be surprised how much of a difference it can make to add one more thin layer of fabric.

• Squat down as if you were tending a fire or inspecting something on the ground. Is your butt still covered? Did the ankles on your new pants ride up uncomfortably and expose your lower legs to the (imaginary) weather?
• Sit down. If the pants feel tight across the seat at all, ditch them or try a larger size.
• Bend and flex your knees. Still comfortable? Next, lift one knee at a time, close to your chest or as close as you can get them. If at any time the pants bind, they’re not going to make you happy on the trail.
• Side lunge, if you’re able, with the bent leg either up on a bench/chair or down on the ground. You’re checking for appropriate mobility/flexibility in the pants’ crotch gusset.
• Finally, duplicate any other motions you can reasonably expect to do on your hikes. For example if you do a lot of scrambling, bring your knees up toward your chest or step up and down on the dressing room bench a few times to make sure the pants won’t restrict your movement at all.

Terms you might see used to describe hiking pants

As you’re scoping out hang tags or online descriptions of hiking pants, you may encounter some of the following terms.

• Articulated knees. Specially designed fabric panels around the knees to allow full range of motion without binding or bagging.
• DWR coating. A waterproof coating applied to the surface of the fabric.
• Gusseted crotch. An extra fabric panel in the crochet of pants; this feature greatly improves your range of motion and, in high-quality pants, won’t create obvious bagging or sagging.)
• SPF rating. Some fabrics are so tightly woven that they earn an SPF rating for sun protection.

You can learn more about special terminology for hiking, and hiking equipment, in my glossary of hiking terms.

Now that you’re set for pants, how about finding hiking boots that fit correctly?