The Outdoor Adventure Giving you tips, tricks & recommendations to help make adventuring in the Outdoors fun, safe & exciting for you and your kids.
Have you heard of Polarmax? They’re a North Carolina based producer of Performance Base Layer gear. Working with a variety of different materials and their own technology they’ve produced baselayers that are meant to help suit our various base layer needs. They categorize them as warm, warmer and warmest too so you know what to expect and what will be best for your climate/outdoors activities. That was important for me when I contacted them about some base layer gear for my summit attempts this summer on some 20 000+ foot peaks in Bolivia. I didn’t wan’t to be caught out in the cold… literally so I did my research and this is what I found:
First of all I was impressed with their Made in USA approach. Polarmax manages the whole process of making the base layers; from design to testing to manufacture to sales and marketing to distribution and customer service, they know what’s going on… and more than that, they keep it green. Everything is done within in a 15 mile radius. From fabric production, to manufacture to warehouses, everything is kept close together. This means less impact on the environment and more jobs and business kept within the country. As an addeds bonus, it helps keep costs down for you and me as well.
Polarmax knows that one base layer doesn’t suit all conditions. Because of that, they put their layers in three categories: warm, warmer and warmest. Choose your adventure and choose how warm you need to be. Spring, summer, winter or fall, they’ll take care of you.
Synthetics are good for breathing and moisture wicking, to top that all off they improve it with their 100% Acclimate Dry Performance Fabric. Some people complain that synthetics can get smelly. OK, better said, some people say that they get smelly in synthetics. To help combat the problem of the smelly hiker / climber / snowboarder, etc, They include a scent prevent protection which as anti-microbial and has anti-odor protection.
If you’re into extreme winter sports like mountaineering you should check out their fleece base layers for those really extreme climates. They use a soft microfleece and flat seam stitching (used on all of their gear) and 10% spandex to give you a more comfortable fit that moves with you while you’re staying warm. The last thing you want to worry about is itchiness and uncomfortable seams!
Polarmax sent me a set of COMP 4 TECH fleece base layers (PMX Hoodie and matching tights) for me to test out. I haven’t been able to put them through their paces yet to give an effective review, but i’ll be getting out in them and putting them through their paces soon. Stay tuned for some long term and more detailed reviews, including how well they hold up on my 20000+ foot summit attempts this summer in South America.
Want your own set? watch for this Thursday’s post where we giveaway a set of sweet COMP 4 TECH FLEECE PMX Hoodie and matching COMP-4 base layer bottoms (just like the ones they sent me!).
