Clothing Buyer's Guide

SHOP FOR

There are lots of clothes out there being marketed as outdoor layers that simply do not live up to their claims, at least not in a wet environment like kayaking. We have decades of experience kayaking and testing clothing in the outdoors. We test every piece of clothing before we offer to sell it. In fact we test clothes so much before we will sell them that sometimes by the time we are convinced that a product is worth our selling the manufacturer has quit making it. But at least the items here are ones we know you will enjoy wearing because they truly function well and are comfortable to wear all day in the field or at sea.

In hot weather a light weight short sleeve top is a great piece to have (but a heavy weight/thick short sleeve top is less useful). As you get cooler, you can either switch to a long sleeve top or keep the short sleeve one on as a base layer and add a long sleeve top over it. When paddling, you don't want to wear more than two layers of tops under your dry suit or else it will cause chaffing under your arms. So in order to be comfortable over a range of temperatures and activity levels, you need long sleeve tops in a variety of thicknesses rather than stacking multiple layers over each other. In the NW we use all the following: thin wool or polypro, medium thick wool or polyester, and 100 - 200 weight fleece. Same for bottoms.