Classic Gear: Rohan Bags

Bags page in the 1987 Rohan Catalogue with pictures of me on the Continental Divide Trail

Third in the Classic Gear series that appeared in The Great Outdoors last year. This time, some revolutionary trousers.

Lightweight, windproof, fast drying, and comfortable walking trousers have been standard wear for many years. It wasn’t always so though. Back in the 1970s, when I started hillwalking and backpacking, walking legwear was quite heavy and made of wool or cotton so it was slow drying and uncomfortable when damp. It was bulky when packed too – you didn’t want to carry a pair in a rucksack. I remember getting cold legs in wet cotton corduroy trousers in summer and sore itchy legs from harsh wet wool rubbing against them in winter.

Thankfully this all changed at the end of the decade when a new innovative company called Rohan introduced trousers in a thin windproof and fast drying tightly woven polyester/cotton fabric they called Airlight. Where did the fabric come from? Knowing that the properties wanted weren’t available in standard clothing fabrics Rohan founders Paul and Sarah Howcroft looked elsewhere and discovered what they wanted in duvet covers! This imaginative look beyond the outdoor and clothing industries would change what we wear in the hills forever.

Bags page in the 1983 Rohan catalogue

The first trousers, called Trotters, quickly evolved into Bags, launched in 1979, with the distinctive design that has stayed the same ever since with its double-front pockets and tough zips. Bags were originally designed as travel and approach walk trousers for mountaineers and so needed to be lightweight, quick-drying and easy care whilst still being functional and hard-wearing. Of course this meant they were also excellent for hillwalking and backpacking. 

Wearing Bags on the Continental Divide Trail

Bags did take a while to become really accepted. Many found it hard to believe such thin trousers could perform well and stand up to outdoor use. I was quickly convinced – an early adopter in today’s parlance. When I first saw them I was delighted with the low weight (284 grams) and the tiny pack size. I’d never seen any outdoor trousers anywhere near that light or that tiny when packed and I realised that they’d be ideal for my upcoming 2,700 mile Pacific Crest Trail through-hike. They proved excellent on that 1982 walk so I used them again on the even longer Continental Divide Trail three years later. There was no way I was going back to heavy, itchy, slow-drying wool and cotton trousers.

Rohan ad in The Great Outdoors, February, 1987 showing how small Bags pack

Rohan started a trend with Bags and since then many alternatives have appeared from many companies and lightweight trousers with the same properties are now the norm. The original design is still available, along with insulated Winter Bags for cold weather and softshell Stretch Bags for those who like close-fitting trousers. All three share that same design from 1979. It’s just as practical now as it was then. That Bags are still in production after thirty nine years and still popular is testimony to the pioneering designs and fabric research of Rohan all those years ago. 

Rohantime Roundup

This year I’ve written three pieces for Rohantime about Rohan and the clothing I used on long distance walks in the late 1970s and the 1980s – Land’s End to John O’Groats, the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail. These pieces have now been gathered together on Rohantime and I’ve written a short Introduction about Rohan and how the innovations they introduced back then – stretch “soft shell” fabrics, thin lightweight windproof fast drying clothing, thin synthetic insulation – and for which they were mocked by some in the outdoor industry are now mainstream. Paul and Sarah Howcroft really did revolutionise outdoor clothing. The pieces can be found in the Rohan Flashback section of Rohantime under the heading Rohan – Back to the Future.

Photo info: On the Continental Divide Trail below the Chinese Wall in Glacier National Park, Montana. 1985. Pentax MX, Tamron 35-70 lens, Kodachrome 64 film. No exposure details. Scanned slide tweaked in Lightroom 2.5.

Continental Divide Trail on Rohantime

Twenty-four years ago I spent nearly six months hiking 3,100 miles from Canada to Mexico on the Continental Divide Trail, a wonderful wilderness adventure through the Rocky Mountains. Back then the CDT was a trail in name only with few signs and no waymarks. There were guidebooks with suggested routes to the northern sections but none for the southern 1,000 miles. In places there were long cross-country sections, at others road walks, though the latter were mostly quite brief. This made the walk exciting and challenging. That hike was supported by the outdoor clothing company Rohan, whose owners were good friends, and I wore Rohan’s then radical polycotton synthetic insulated clothing throughout the trip. A longer piece I wrote about the CDT and the clothing has just been published on Rohantime.

Photo info: In the Rocky Mountains, Montana on the Continental Divide Trail, 1985. Pentax MX, Tamron 35-70 lens, Kodachrome 64. Scan adjusted in Lightroom 2.5.

Rohan Memories

Many, many years ago when I was starting out as a hiker and backpacker a new outdoor company was also starting. This was Rohan, now well-established in outdoor and travel clothing, but back then tiny and unknown but also, crucially, innovative. Wool and cotton were the standard clothing fabrics back then and there was shock and horror in the outdoor industry when Rohan suggested stretch nylon and polyester-cotton could perform better. Rohan was right though and I wore Rohan clothing on my first long walks.

I haven’t had a close relationship with Rohan since the 1980s but recently co-founder Sarah Howcroft, who left the company a long time ago, told me she was involved in a new venture about Rohan and its history and asked if I would like to contribute. When I’d stopped reminiscing I said yes and wrote a piece about my first contact with Rohan that has just been posted on the new Rohantime website. It can be found in the Flashback section under the name In The Beginning. There will be other posts in the future.

My Rohan involvement was long before digital cameras so all my photos from then are transparencies, which I’ve never had scanned. However Sarah offered to scan some to illustrate my posts and two have appeared, one taken on the Continental Divide Trail and showing me sitting by a camp fire wearing a polycotton Moving On windshirt and polycotton Bags trousers, both of which lasted the almost 6 month long walk well, and one taken at a campsite on my length of the Canadian Rockies walk showing me wearing a T Major shirt and Bags trousers.

As I haven’t any digital images of myself wearing Rohan clothing the photo accompanying this post shows a friend climbing Suilven a couple of years ago in his old but still functional Moving On windshirt. Sarah will be sending me the scans of my photos soon and I’ll post some here.

Photo info: On the ascent of Suilven. Canon EOS 350D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm @22mm, 1/125@F5.6, ISO 100, raw file converted to JPEG in Lightroom 2.