10 oz or less rule for hiking rain pants

When shopping for a pair of rain pants for hiking, you should begin with the 10 oz rule. Anything above that is too heavy duty, and will do more harm than good weighing down your backpack.

Consider how infrequently hikers and backpackers actually use rain pants over the course of a season. Most hikes don’t involve rain, and even when they do, a rain jacket is usually sufficient.

Thus, aside from keeping the wearer dry, the next most important thing for rain pants is that they don’t weigh down your backpack. However, there are exceptions. For example, if you will be bushwhacking in the rain.

Considerations on different zipper configurations

Rain pants for hiking have an array of zippers, ranging from none at all, to ¼, ¾, and full length zippers. It is our perspective that zippers are a nice to have, but not a need to have. They provide benefit in how they add ventilation and if large enough, can allow you take your hiking rain pants on or off without first removing your shoes.

That said, zippers are a feature that manufacturers have to build into the garment, which will add cost and weight. This is not always a good exchange.

If you have small-to-medium size feet, ¼ zips can be very helpful allowing you to take the pants on/off without removing your shoes. However, they don’t help or do anything if you have large feet, and in that case, we would rather have no ankle zipper. In that scenario, we prefer ¾ or full zips pants that run high enough to allow for leg ventilation and the ability to interface nicely with large shoes.

Tips for wearing waterproof pants

When wearing your waterproof pants on a hike, there are a few things that can help you optimize their performance. For starters, if you’re wearing the rain pants over top of hiking pants, we recommend tucking your pants into your socks so there is no chance that the bottom of the hiking pants will stick out below the bottom hems of your rain pants.

If your hiking rain pants have an elastic shock cord or ability to cinch, we recommend taking advantage to prevent the pants from sagging, which can create a gap where the top of your pants meet the bottom of your jacket and backpack. Lastly, if your rain pants have zippers, we prefer to leave them open along the quad for ventilation, unless it’s outright pouring.

How to care for hiking rain pants

Like with rain jackets, a little care goes a long way for rain pants. We recommend keeping a patch kit with gear aid tenacious tape stored in your backpack for field repairs. They are very effective and long lasting.

Once per year, or periodically if used and dirtied frequently, we also recommend using NikWax Techwash and TX.Direct to clean your hiking rain pants and restore the DWR finish. This will help revive its ability to have water bead up and roll off upon contact. The best rain pants for hiking all require a bit of periodic upkeep, and that’s completely normal.

A complete guide to the best rain jackets

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