Everest has been climbed with climbers wearing cotton outerwear, the poles have been reached doing the same. These expeditions were using what was available at the time and could have chosen anything they wanted. So long as you keep the cotton outerwear dry it is a wonderful fabric. If you expect rain, you'll need to bring along separate rain gear, but for wind protection in dry weather, cotton is great.

Alberta weather - that's just nuts.

Good woolen knitwear is getting increasingly difficult to find at a good price due to the availability of fleece. Although fleece performs well and is lightweight I prefer a woolen knitwear simply because of the advantages of greater comfort and safety. Low end quality fleece also tends to become cheap looking and the worst for wear after only a short period.

The Arktis 1514 Woolen Antartica Shirt has been designed to be flame retartdent. Its a 70% Merino wool/ 30% Nomex midlayer garment.



http://www.lansdaleltd.com/prod.php/prod/1514G

Its called the Arktis D190 in the US at $85.95. The D191 bottoms $59.95 are also available at

http://www.arktisusa.com/MilitaryClothing/Thermal/

Or there is always the classic Wooly Pully.

http://www.actiongear.com/cgi-bin/tame.exe/agcatalog/level4s.tam?xax=17726&M5COPY%2Ectx=8467&M5%2Ectx=3268&M2%5FDESC%2Ectx=Woolly%20Pully%26%23174%3B%20Wool%20Sweaters&level3%2Ectx=results%2Etam&query%2Ectx=wooly%20pully&backto=%2Fagcatalog%2Fresults%2Etam

Or if this is to tactical looking then a thick merino wool sweater from the Swedish company Chevalier is excellent but more expensive.



http://www.davidgoldie.co.uk/acatalog/copy_of_copy_of_Orkney_Sweater.html

The wool/nomex looks good. Too bad it's UK, do they ship to the California? My latest buy on this is a Firelite Pullover.

I'll wear wool or nomex under (depending on weather) and this on top.

Much of the Helly Hansen fire resistant clothing is a wool/nomex blend I believe.

The Helly Hansen tops I have are wool/polypro. Could not find nomex at hellyhansen.com/

Hi Russ,

Arktis does have a distributor in the US, but I don't know if they ship to California. I suspect they would.

http://www.arktisusa.com/Contact/

They can be contacted at sales@arktisusa.com

Excellent, thanks. Didn't think to look for a US distributor.

Looks like I was mistaken. Their FR tops don't have poly though. It's a Wool/Viscose/INOX blend. You need to look into their 'work wear' to get into the fire reistant stuff.