Fabric

Clothing for outdoors is made from a variety of fabrics, each with advantages and disadvantages. It is highly important to understand the fabric while choosing your trek.There are various good stores in India now which make garments with standard fabric. This blog will make you learn importance of different fabric used across climate conditions. Choosing your clothes wisely helps a lot in severe climate conditions and we may be unaware of the fact how clothing is helping body to climb more. 

Cotton is comfortable to wear when dry but absorbs many times its weight in water and loses its insulating qualities when wet. Because it absorbs so much water, it takes a long time to dry. In hot weather, however,cotton ventilates well and helps to cool the body. Wet it down on a hot day, and the water evaporating from the cotton will cool you off.

Silk readily absorbs water,but not as much as cotton so it dries faster. Silk is also useful in hot weather. Wetted down it helps cool the body through evaporation.

Wool is far less absorbent than cotton , so it holds less water when wet. Consequently , it does not conduct away as much body heat and requires far less heat to dry. Wool is also warmer when wet because it does not collapse and therefore retains much of its dead-air space.

Synthetic does not absorb any water. Some moisture is held in suspension between the filaments of the fabric when it is wet, but most of the water can be easily wrung out. Garments made from synthetic are comparatively warmer when wet and dry fast too. It is also very light and fluffy so that, ounce for ounce,it traps more dead-air than natural fibres like wool.All these features contribute to make synthetic a versatile and effective insulating material.

Polyester, Acrylic and Polypropylene fabrics are used for a variety of long underwear and insulating garments. The synthetic filaments in this fabric are also lightweight, non-absorbent and quick drying. The filaments of some are also very good at transporting perspiration away from the body , making them best suited for the use next to the body. More and more fabrics are being designed to do this , these fabrics have largely replaced wool, cotton and silk for use in long underwear. Wear selecting items of clothing, consult the tags on individual garments or get help from the sales person.

Down is still the warmest insulation available. It is also the most compressible, so it packs away small yet quickly regains its loft and warmth when unpacked. these qualities make down an excellent insulator for cold-weather use. Unfortunately down loses all its insulating value when wet and its almost impossible to dry in the mountains, making it a poor insulator in wet climate.

Spun Synthetic Filament do not collapse when wet, as down does. Therefore the make excellent insulation for coats and sleeping bags used in moist climates. Although cheaper and more easily cleaned than down, they are not as warm, weigh more and are less compressible. The useful life of synthetics is much shorter than down.

Nylon shells, which o over the insulating layers, give protection from the wind but are not waterproof unless the nylon is coated. Use synthetic/down layer as a coating over nylon . Although most coatings keep rain out but they also seal sweat in. If you are climbing hard, the sweat generated can dampen your insulation from within. Microporous coating are designed to attach this problem. The holes in the coating are large enough to let vapor escape but too small forliquid water to get in, so the coating breathes but in still waterproof. Gore-Tex , the first waterproof/breathable fabric works on the same theory.