Review: Burton [ak] Baker Power Wool™ Base Layer Pants
What we liked
Light, quick-drying
Enough wool content to prevent stink in extended use
Stylish to look at and lovely to wear
What we didn’t
Fairly pricey
The Verdict
THE SHORT READ…
Burton’s [ak] Baker Power Wool™ Base Layer Pants are excellent in use - stylish, comfy, fitting, warm, quick-drying, light, and with enough wool content so your buddies don’t kick you out whatever close-quarters you happen to be in. They really work well, with no real performance downsides. They come in at a premium, even over high-quality pure wool brands, but do read on, and see if the price is right for you.
THE LONG READ …
Pete reviewed the matching baselayer top that goes with these, earlier in the season and likes them a lot. Here, we get to dive into the lower parts (there’s part of a metaphor here, somewhere?) and see how well the bottoms of the set work.
Fabric & Construction - 31% wool and the rest polyester. The L comes in at 170g, which is 20g lighter than my usual Icrebreaker 100% merino pair. They are well put together, some quality stiching here. I love the wide pin-striped waist-band - it adds a certain classiness and it’s a shame you only get to show it off occasionally. But even the main material has a kind of grid patterning, which looks great.
Crucially, for a mainly polyester item, it feels really soft. If you scrunch it up quite hard in your hands, you can just about feel some of that ‘catchiness’ that polyester gear can have, but treat them in a regular way and and they are lovely and soft, and on the legs they feel great. Burton say these Baker Power Wools have chafe-free seams, and I have no reason to disagree, I never felt any rubbing from any seam.
There’s y-front-like access at the front a ‘locker loop’ at the rear for hanging it on a peg. And a thigh pocket… (more later).
On the environmental side, Burton have signed up to Bluesign®, which seems to be a materials quality-monitoring and auditoring organisation. It’s not saying your polyester is “good for the planet” as such, but rather that it’s got to you without causing undue issues to workers along the way, and reducing resource-use and emissions. It’s complex comparing this process to something like wool products, because wool can have it’s own issues, with animal welfare for instance. You’ll need to make up your own mind on this aspect.
Pockets - Yes, a thigh pocket. I’m not convinced it’s 100% neccessary but it certainly adds to the stylish look. And actually, I did find one good use-case for it - staying a hut when it was minus 20-degrees outside (and felt not far off that in our sleeping quarters), I was struggling to soften my natural-wax deodorant enough to apply it in the mornings, so took to putting a small container of it in that pocket overnight, so that it was soft when I woke up.
Fit - Burton say slim fit and they are - nicely snug on my lanky 6-foot-2 legs (well, my legs aren’t that tall all by themselves, you know what I mean…). Crucially, around the ankles they were also fairly snug, not too much extra material there to tuck into my snowboarding socks.
In-use - The 31% wool is enough to give these some good protection against odour build-up. For testing, of course, I used these for several sweaty days in a row, all day, and all night - I was on a hut-to-hut trip and it was really cold in the common and sleeping rooms, alright? Anyway, no stink build-up, with was a relief for all concerned. They feel good on. I’m slim and tall and they don’t feel baggy. The wide waist-band feels great, ‘secure’ somehow.
The leggings did get sweaty on a couple of hot hikes but I never got cold in them at the top. And they do dry quickly, either while wearing or on the drying rack.
SUMMARY…
Burton say these are ‘pro level’ baselayers, and from some pretty hard use in the field I have to say they won me over - and that’s speaking as someone who hasn’t worn any baselayer with less than about 80% wool in years. They feeling almost - almost - as nice as my pure wool favourites, but are a bit lighter and quicker-drying - and pretty stylish to look at - so on the functional side, these can be recommended. The only challenge could be that all these features come with a premium price.