I know Tom Brown loves his wool colthing, but is fleece the new wool? Light weight, dries out easily, does it still insulate when wet?

TRO

Overall, natural materials are still a winner for any trip where you can't wash your clothes for a day or two. Ibexwear makes really great synthetic/wool blend clothes... the best of both worlds in my opinion.

www.customwoolenmills.com/index.htm Bill will answer just about any question about wool you can come up with. The first thing to remember is that not all wool products are the marvelous stuff you see a square jawed arctic explorer wearing replete with canadian pattern smoking pipe. There are various grades, just like tea, maple syrup and gasoline. Wool ideally is virgin with the natural fibers still intact. You start mixing in nylon for wearability, wools processed in various proceedures for manufacture or recycled, fabric wieght and the various twists for yarn and even it's origonal wearer might say BAAAAAAAAD! There are also various felts, boiled yarns like the marvelous Dachstein and many hybrid blends. Pile clothing has come a long way from the primer grey coloured stuff that pilled ( shedding fuzz balls) and made unwashed gymn socks smell like pot-pourri satchets in comparison. The product is pretty uniform and honestly outperforms it's woolen equal by a small margin. Wool remains the safest material around fire. I've never been comfortable with plastics after catching two horses running down the PCH during the Malibu Burn with burning stallblankets and melted halters. <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> Wool for me has one additional 'use.' I have an Aran sweater with my family pattern. I was so proud of it until this character in a San Francisco pub explained each family pattern was to help I.D. drowned fishermen that had been in the water awhile.

I would agree. Pile is fine as long and your are not going to be anywhere near a open flame. Unfortunately that presents quite a problem if you need to start a fire. All the pile pullovers I own and have taken camping/hiking have at least a half-dozen burn holes where sparks hit me (most of the time without me noticing). IMHO nothing beats wool socks, period. Any benefits of pile over wool are not worth the risk with regard to tops and bottoms. That being said the idea of wool underware does not particularly appeal to me, so maybe I am a hypocrite.

"...the idea of wool underware does not particularly appeal to me, so maybe I am a hypocrite."

What Chris said is true about quality in wool, and really applies when it comes to underwear. I used to have some, made of primo wool, and they were W O N D E R F U L ! ! ! So soft, so warm, so light, and even comfy when the sun came out unless I was really working up a sweat, and even then it was just too warm, not scratchy.

VIRGIN wool is wool that came right from the sheep (we aren't talking about what the sheep do at night), and has long, smooth fibers. Reused wool (the word "virgin" is conspicuously missing) is where you get into itchy, scratchy trouble, apparently because the fibers are now shorter and stubby and stick out. It's the difference between a mass of long, silky hair under your chin while you're dancing and the stubbly stuff stuck under your collar after you get a haircut.

Fleece is just plastic. Suitable for some uses, makes you sweat the rest of the time. <img src="/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

Sue

While expensive, there are a number of nomex fleece products available, if fire resistance of concern.

Bulwork Fleece Sweatshirt towards the bottom of the page.

Massif I have seen their products and while I do not own any (yet), they do appear to have one of the best product lines.

Chuckroast

Majestic

Pete

There is something just wrong with talking about wool when I went out to my car at lunch and it was a 105 F in the parking lot.

I was home from the service and feeling homesick for Alaska, preparing to cut my beard for job interviews with a fine solingen straight razor( after being homesick for Southern California for 6 years.) The radio was playing Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song. I put on my fur trimmed alaskan parka and trooper's hat, snuggled comfortably in it trying to catch the fading smells of salmon, woodsmoke, saltspray and spilled hot buttered rhums . The doorbell rang and I opened it without pause. The summer blast of the then 100 degree drought shoved past somebody holding a bible with the threat of even greater temperatures as our band sang " valhalla I am coming..." and I'm standing there like some Jack London ubermennen holding a razor. He mumbled something and left quickly. Try that with Goretex <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Lol, maybe a Gortex windbreaker with "IRS" in large white letters on the back? Great story Chris, Thanks <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

When Ibex starts making tall sizes I want to try several of their items until then I guess its Filsons among others for me.