Very nice with a few caveats

By Mitch Stein Ranked #15 - Men's Hiking and Climbing Pants June 16, 2010

These pants are great stretchy pants for cooler weather, as the fabric is much heavier than the stuff used in other stretchy pants like the the Arc'Teryx Rampart & Palisade or Mountain Hardwear Talus & Chockstone.

Because of their more conventional cut, and the fabric's coarser texture, they look more like cotton duck pants than slick super-tech backcountry tools (although they are still plenty capable). This makes them a bit more versatile, style-wise, as they fit in a bit better than the others once you head back to civilization after day on the rock and trail.

So, you're probably wondering: "If he loves 'em so much, why only four stars?". Well, I'm glad you asked...

I have a love/hate thing going with one particular feature, namely the hand pockets. They are made of a heavier-weight version of the micro-chamois material so popular for lining waist bands in up-market pants and are sinfully comfy and warm.

Every time I slide my hands into 'em, I automatically say "ahhhh" (which can be kind of embarrassing if I happen to be standing in a crowd at the time)... The problem is, that for some reason, MH made the pockets really shallow, which is contrary to any of the other fine pants in their line. In fact, they are so shallow (and sans-zippers), that stuff tends to fall out of these otherwise glorious hand houses.

Ironically, the whole situation is made worse precisely due to the extreme comfort of the damn things, as your bliss-seeking paws are constantly wrestling for the upper hand (pun-intended) with the plethora of inanimate objects already struggling to maintain purchase in that rarefied volume... except, of course, when you are in the midst of a fully inverted, single finger handhold (with a twist), in which case gravity takes over the task of re-distributing your belongings to those in a lower (vertical) strata (remember, no zippers!).

I just don't know why MH did this... maybe to taunt us, maybe to keep us occupied constantly retrieving change, keys and winning lottery tickets from between the cushions and off of the floor during the long train ride to the top of Jungfrau Pass. Maybe the pocket fabric is really expensive, and they were trying to save on production costs (that would also explain the lack of zippers) so they could price them within the reach of more pocket-comfort-lusting consumers of limited means. Maybe they ran out of this amazing fabric during initial prototyping, and forgot to fix the spec, when they went into production... Maybe I should just get over it, so I can finish this rant, and get my hands off of the keyboard, and back into my Piero pockets...

All in all though, great pants, of which I have several pairs.

View Details: Mountain Hardwear Piero Pant - Men's

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