Montane Terra Pants walking trousers Review

Wearing the Montane Terras on the Climbers Traverse path up to Great Slab and Bowfell

As you can't see in the picture above, I'm wearing the Montane Terras. Fear not, I am wearing them in the picture below. Phew, what a relief.

The Montane Terra Pants in the, er, 'great indoors'. La Sporitva trail shoes (amazing!) complete the look...

Lots has been said about these but I can honestly say they're my favourites outdoors trousers and my absolute go-to ones - well, unless doing some heavy duty scrambling when I pull out an older pair of Craghoppers.

Why so special?

Well they're incredibly lightweight and nice to wear. Unlike my Bear Grylls pants, the Terras don't make you sound like you're a moving paper bag. (Add in a Goretex Pro jacket and you have a combo of moving paper bag and crisp packet all in one...)

The Cordura reinforcement (black area)

The fabric is resilient and yet they feel almost like a second skin. The main fabric is TACTEL and the reinforced areas are CORDURA which is very strong. There is reinforcement in the important areas such as the knees / thighs and around the rear quarters (the 'buttocks' in the words of Forrest Gump if you've seen that movie...)

The reinforcement goes right down to the inside of the lower leg / ankle. Brilliant.

There is a great level of venting available - at the bottom of the legs and at the top of the legs around the thighs. This makes them incredibly useful for Spring and Summer excursions.

Showing a bit of leg - steady on ladies...

Venting at the top comes with mesh to help with modesty and even potentially keep out some bugs...

The pants are also articulated which may sound like a fancy word unless you've actually worn them to see how they move with your body.

Back in the day I used my army lightweights. Good and durable and solid. Then the Craghoppers Kiwis which were strong and practical. The Bear Grylls pants were a step in the right direction, let down by the rustle and excess pockets. But the Montane Terra Pants are absolutely brilliant for movement. They are unlike any other outdoors trousers I have ever worn. They are so good for moving, climbing things, scrambling around. And that's down to the articulation.

They also have some good pockets with mesh lining.

Pocket pulled out

A waist belt completes the pants with all they need. I am a waist 30 and got these in small. The one slight thing is that even with my ickle waist they are slightly tight, yet I can pull the waist out around 10cm! So the issue is with the elasticated waist possibly being a bit overzealous. But that's the only fault I can find!

I have worn these in various temperatures and they've been fine. They have dried very quickly in light showers and are incredibly breathable. They're durable and lightweight too. Perfect.

Montane Minimus Pants (Waterproof trousers) Review

My go-to waterproof trousers have been the Berghaus Deluge over trousers in the last few years. You would be hard pushed to find something more resilient and relatively breathable for the price.

However, what about those Spring and Summer months when the boots are put into hibernation and the temperatures rise enough for the lightweight kit to make an appearance...? Cue another pair of lightweight waterproof over trousers. On offer were the Montane Minimus so I got them - paid around £45.

Their first test was a slight mishap in that I wore my boots and mistakenly packed the Minimus pants instead of my Berghaus ones. Cue me stumbling around in heavy rain and sleety snow trying to get them on - unsuccessfully. The only way was to head for some cover, take off my boots, put on the waterproofs and then put my boots back on. Note to self: don't do that again.

The waterproofs themselves held out fine except for the usual plastering of mud as I considered and then thought better off a river crossing and headed back along a path...

Dartmoor in the murk and sleety snow. Location of a hapless hiker trying to put on the pants...

Back to the review, the pants are extremely lightweight (140g) and understandably very different to the Deluge pants which are more weighty. I don't think I'd be dragging them across scrambles on Bristly Ridge or through gorse on moorland. But they're probably more resilient than they seem and that's the price for going lightweight.

The outer fabric has a ripstop type face. The breathable fabric is 2 layer Pertex Shield which isn't breathable on the level of 3 layer fabrics like eVent and Goretex but is pretty good. Over the period of about 90mins walking quite quickly in rain and snow I didn't have any issues with breathability or leakage but that's obviously to be expected! They did well in a wet-ish day in Lakeland too.

Top of Fisher's Wife's Rake

The pants have some nice touches. They have 1 1/4 length leg zip which really helps getting them on over shoes and trainers etc. There is just one zip on the legs, probably to minimise weight.

Down the leg of the Montane Minimus

The zip on the Montane Minimus

There is also a strap lower down the leg (calf area) to cinch in the waterproofs when you're moving fast through the mountains or you're trail running. Nice touch. There is also reflective detail on the Minimus pants as well - much needed. The waist has a simple draw string at the front.

All in all, the Montane Minimus waterproof trews trousers pants (choose appropriate name) are a very good pair of lightweight overtrousers. They won't breathe as well as eVent or Goretex etc but they're not as expensive retail price either. They may not have the features of Paramo offerings but they don't have the price or the heat either. They're not as resilient as things like the Berghaus Deluge but they're under half the weight!

You pay your money and you take your choice... Ideal for moving fairly fast (just not too fast so you get too hot) and for trail running, just as Montane say.