Why We Chose The Black Diamond Technician Pro Alpine Pants: Streamlined, lightweight, weather resistant
Technical climbers who need an equally technical pair of mountain pants wouldn’t go wrong looking towards Black Diamond. They’ve consistently impressed us with their considered designs – and this is certainly a case for the Technician Pro Alpine Pants. They’re a pair of climbing pants purpose-built to survive the harsh life of climbing and mountaineering.
Materials and Construction
The Technician Pro Alpine Pants are cut from Black Diamond’s mighty impressive GTT Empel Technology, which has featured a few times on the Outdoor 100 within various forms of Black Diamond clothing. This technology makes use of a water-free and PFC-free DWR (durable water repellant) treatment that is said to be much more durable than traditional DWR treatments.
“It’s the classic stripped-down minimal approach that we’ve come to expect from Black Diamond.”
DWR is the stuff that brands wash into the outer of outdoor clothing to save it from getting saturated with water (and losing its breathability). When water is beading off a fabric, that’s usually thanks to the DWR treatment at work within the outer fabric.
The secret sauce to this technology is what’s called ‘covalent molecular bonding.’ It’s all pretty geeky stuff, so bear with us here. CMB causes the polymers of the DWR to lock into the fibres of the fabric instead of layering on top of them. This means that during frequent washes, such as heavy periods of rain, the CMB treated DWR is much more resistant to washing away.
Although these trousers aren’t waterproof, it’s great to see Black Diamond bringing it to use within their softshell clothing to help provide that extra level of water resistance that won’t wash away within weeks, or following a few cycles in the washing machine. The technology has impressed the whole Outdoors Magic team while we’ve been testing it over the past two years on waterproof clothing so it’s great to see it branch out to a wider appeal.
Aside from the inbuilt water resistance, the Technician Pro Alpine Pants are built to survive the demands of technical climbing and mountaineering, whether that’s while dragging yourself up a rough Gritstone outcrop, or crossing sharp Torridonian Sandstone ridgelines. This durability is all thanks to a Graphene yarn that’s woven into the fabric to help provide both wear resistance and a slight boost in thermal efficiency.
Features
Taking a look at the features, you’ve got the classic stripped-down minimal approach that we’ve come to expect from Black Diamond. What you do get is a single zipped thigh pocket, two harness compatible hand pockets and a single back right pocket to store valuables.
We’ve also come to expect handy ways of adjustment from Black Diamond and this is certainly the case with the Technician Pro Alpine Pants. The ladder lock waist adjustment works well to tighten the waist, while not getting in the way when you come to take the pants on and off and the cuffs feature a neat bungee that allows them to be tightened to keep any unwanted loose fabric away from your feet.
