I met the Carhartt crew in Las Vegas at the SHOT Show this year. I was surprised to learn that they were now offering an outdoor line of clothing. They have some nice options. In talking to them, one thing led to another and pretty soon we decided to test some of their new outdoor gear.
Let’s back up a second, though. Carhartt is known for its rugged clothing. I first got acquainted with them by wearing one of their brown canvas jackets while working for Coleman Natural Beef in Limon, Colorado. You know how winters can be on the plains in Eastern Colorado, and it quickly became my go-to jacket for working cattle in the pens there. The snow blows sideways there about a million mph.
My second experience with them was noticing that a bunch of the guys on my daughter’s Hot Shot crew wore Carhartt pants while fighting forest fires. Since then I’ve since started wearing more and more of the company’s gear. The jeans are tough and the colored pants are nice-looking for casual events.
But back to testing. To start off, I was interested in some of Carhartt’s base gear. The company has some nice-looking undergarments and pullover balaclava-type headgear. I wore the base gear while out shooting the other day. The wind wasn’t too bad. Plus, it was semi-cool. I had a lot of Crossman airguns and pellets to test, so I was going to be out all day.
There are also making some nice hiking socks. I wore them yesterday, as well. Katy calls me the “Eternal Tightwad,” but I’d highly recommend you buy some good hiking socks for your outdoor adventures. They’re more comfortable to wear plus they’ll wick away moisture when your feet sweat or get wet.
I’ll use the balaclavas while 4-wheeling or while sleeping in my tent. You know how cold it gets at night in a tent even when camping in the summer. Decades ago, I started leaving some kind of a head toboggan in my sleeping bag. That way my head doesn’t freeze while trying to sleep.
We know how tough Carhartt’s thick canvas pants and blue jeans are for work situations, but I also ordered a pair of slacks. I guess I really thought they were olive green pants that I would use hunting, but wow, they’re nice-looking and can double as slacks. I wore them to church the other morning.
Of course, Carhartt also has a line of women’s gear. Katy is testing some of its socks as we speak. I can only pray that she doesn’t find out all the options the company has or there’ll be another huge drain on the very important and critical emergency gun-saving funds.
I guess I’ve been out of the kids’ stuff for a good while, but now that I have a grandson that is all changing. My daughter loves Carhartt kid’s clothing and is sending us pics of his new gear. Maybe I wasn’t really a dork as a kid. Maybe they just didn’t have any good clothing to make me look cool back in the 1800s like they do now!
Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.
