As you know we're alwasy looking for great quality clothing for the adventure lifestyle. To be completely honest, I'm kind of over standard ultralight (not very durable) backpacker style clothing. While ultra lightweight pants & shirts have their place when on a 5 day wilderness adventure, my daily adventures of taking care of kids and spending time in our FJ Cruiser tend to be very hard on my clothes. I've worn out more than one set of zip-off backpacking pants, and my lightweight button-up shirts always either get stained or ripped on a tree.
My search began for suitable, durable, and reasonably priced shirt & pants to be my main hiking/riding setup for this summer. Since it'll be Brenden & I a lot of the time this year (with a new baby on the way), I also needed something that has plenty of storage. I looked at the standard outdoor brands: Mountain Hardwear, Patagonia, The North Face, etc as well as 'premium' OHV industry brands: Mountain Khakis and Triple Aught Design. All options I found that were close to meeting my needs are pretty expensive, which is OK for quality gear. None of them seemed to meet my needs exactly, until I stumbled upon Duluth Tradiing Company out of Wisconsin.
Duluth has built their business around tradesmen: carpenters, electricians, construction workers. This means their gear is TOUGH, althought it's not the lightest options we'll find. Their stuff also has plenty of utility built in. I counted 12 pockets in the Flex Fire Hose Pants I'm wearing. Reasonably priced at $69.50 for pants & $49.50 for a quality shirt, I thought I'd give them a try.
This setup gots its first workout at Overland Expo down near Flagstaff, AZ. The weather was deent for may in AZ, hovering in the 70's with a good wind most of the time. I kept the sleeves on the CoolPlus F.O.M. (Freedom of Movement) shirt rolled most of the time, and the pants stored not only my normal gear, but also a tablet, snacks for Brenden, and even a sippy cup. Forget about the construction worker, these are DADDY pants.
Since I've only had these out a couple of days, I can't comment on the durability yet, but from the build quality I think that won't be an issue. The shirt is lightweight yet durable, and the pants are simply perfect for my needs. Reasonable Price: Check. Utilitarian: Check. Durable: Check. These are a great bet for anyone looking to move beyond ultra-lightweight cltohing.