Montane Terra Pant Review

Montane Terra Pant Review

This is a extract of a review written by Wayne Clark and originally posted on Sportzhub

Montane..  Who? Never heard of Montane? They are a UK brand started 18 years ago, specializing in clothing and gear for athletic mountain activities.  The brand has just landed in New Zealand with the new distribution company and online store, Further Faster.

The gear has been well reviewed overseas for its quality and design.

The Terra pants are a lightweight woven nylon cordura pant weighing in at 320gm for the men's size.  Stronger ripstop reinforced nylon is used in higher wear areas such as the backside, knee and inner calf and ankle..

One of the tests was a day walk along the coastline to do some rock hopping and check the versatility and performance.

It was a muggy day with the temperature getting up to 19 degrees in the end..

The fit is generous.  They fit the waist well. I think there was a mix up and I got a size larger than I wanted but the built in waist belt had no trouble holding the pants in place.

The legs had ample room in them to accommodate even my fat legs and give freedom of movement through the full range.

Scrambling up rocks. there was no restriction with the articulated knees.

The bottom of the legs have a series of domes to let you control how tightly you would like to close down the end of the trousers.. there is also  a side zip at ankle the bottom to allow fitting over large boots.

Hmm woven nylon. From experience so far, its not my favorite material, I’ve found it to feel clammy on my skin once I start sweating.. and the lack of stretch can be a pain in the neck for my um… lets say , “well endowed” legs..

Not long after starting out I could feel the heat building up in the pants… oh great another sauna fest…

The pants have zips all over them so I had a looksie at them all. There is a pair of generously sized zipped front pockets with vented material inside to help alleviate the heat and sweat a bit, then lower down longer pockets..

Inside one of the front pockets is another zipped security pocket for holding valuables.

So I unzipped those rather long third of a metre long zips..  Hang on, they are in fact thigh vents…  Aahh.. a cool breeze on my skin.. Sauna syndrome alleviated.

After a day of walking around in these pants I was pretty happy with them, the felt like and I hardly noticed I was wearing them. They kept my legs cool on a warm day with the generous cut and vents..  Could be a good answer if you want to keep the worst of the sun off your legs over summer.  UPF protection is 40+

Being cordura the nylon while light still feels very strong with good abrasion resistance.  The fabric is a TACTEL nylon.  It’s designed to be a quiet material that doesn’t have the normal rustly sound that occurs when moving with nylon clothing, and I have to agree that it pretty much achieves what it set out to do..  I didn’t feel like I was wearing nylon,, my thigh gap is non existent and I sound like a freight train coming normally when wearing nylon pants.  I didn’t notice nearly as much noise in these pants.

Montane double stitch all their seams and use a high stitch count of 12 stitches per inch, above the normal stitch count.  Making the seams extra strong.

The fabric is treated with a Teflon based treatment to help repel water and oil.

So, would I use these pants again?  Yes.  They are well designed for their purpose, with quality materials.  This is the fourth Montane clothing item I have used and I’ve been pretty pleased with all of them.