Columbia Canal Street Pant
November 16, 2009
A girl who lives in the Arctic can’t have too many pairs of insulated snow pants. This is a fact corroborated by my gear closet, in which resides about a dozen pair of snow pants, all of which get a fair bit of action throughout the winter. This means that when new pants show up, not only do I not have any room for them, but I measure them against all the other snow pants that I have. My snow pants are like a clique of high school girls, eyeing every newcomer to discern whether it will fit in, be a troublemaker, or end up ousting the top mean girl and leading the pack. While the Canal Street Pants probably won’t be the Homecoming Queen (too sporty), they might end up being one of the Heathers, as they really are quite a nice addition to the snow pant army.
Columbia cunningly sent the brown twill version, and I’m a real sucker for brown pants so I automatically reached for these for our sub zero dog walk last night. I like the low-waist style, and even though they’re not perfectly tailored and therefore gapped a bit in the back, they were decently comfortable without a belt. I was really enamored by the length; they are long enough to go over poofy snow boots without looking like I’m waiting for the snow to melt suddenly and create a flood.
Lightly insulated, the pants were warm enough for a 0 degree brisk walk, although I suspect they’re not warm enough to stand around in those temperatures. It has been a strangely precipitation-less week so I can’t fill you in on their water repellent properties, but from the feel of the fabric, they’d perform decently in the snow. They ARE snow pants, after all. They seem to run true to size as well. Although I like to report more on the functionality of the gear I test, I have to mention that I was going to hand these off to another tester who was hovering around my office door looking for gear, but once I tried them on and saw how cute they were I kept them for myself and she was out of luck. Sometimes it’s good to be the boss.
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