I am a dude, and I love these pants. Hopefully my experience helps some poor guy out there who has as much trouble finding pants as I have.

I've been kicking around the idea of buying women's pants for a few years. I am an athletic 5'7" and 175 lbs. 40S suit, anywhere from 32-34 pants. The kicker is 40" at the hips and only reach a 30" inseam on a good day. All of the women's reviews here commenting on the relatively narrow hip/large waist sizing on the pants convinced me they might actually be thick-guy pants rather than chick pants. Turns out the size L fit pretty great, snug in the waist and hips, nice aerodynamic fit through the knees and below.

With men's pants, particularly outdoors designed pants, it's impossible for me to get waist, hips, and inseam measurements anywhere close to in sync. Fit the hips and thighs means hugely baggy through the legs and generally 6" too long. Solved! The shaping through the hips shows off my awesome booty while the fit stays trim through the legs. Thank you, bc, for making me pants that fit and hiding them as a pair of funny shaped women's pants.

Four stars for more pocket space and false measurements--inseam measures at 33, still way too long, and there isn't enough pocket space for even a small point and shoot camera.

Spectacular boots. I measure out between US 9.5-10 and slightly narrow. The 10s in the Salewa looked and felt like clown shoes so I exchanged for 9.5, then added superfeet black. Paired them with smartwool light compression socks. Thanks to some excellent planning on my part I put zero (0) miles on them before 10 days, 80 miles, and something like 20k vertical feet in the Andes.

Boots were stupid-comfortable right out of the box. Good stiffness with enough flex. Solid ankle support, turned out to be more than was even necessary. Once on the trail, produced no blisters, only a couple of hints of hot spots that never turned into anything. Kevlar rand seemed gimmicky until I walked through scree that would have eaten naked leather alive. As the suede upper broke in it got easier and easier to fine-tune the fit through the excellent lacing system. The extra long toe box proved less clownish when my toes were bang-free on 1200m canyon descents.

Bottom line, I can't say enough about the last that Salewa is using, and about the importance of matching your foot shape, socks, and boots carefully. If your foot is the right shape and you keep the friction between the socks and the boot these boots are unbeatable.

Previous experience: heavy duty Merrells with a few hundred miles. Got fed up with blisters in those and started doing any trips with pack weight under 70lbs in Chaco Z2s. Older timberland day hikers with 100 miles or so. There was a pair of Vasques in there that didnt make it more than 50 miles, too many blisters to deal with. Three pairs of jungle/desert boots with...dunno. Lotta miles. No blisters that I can remember.

So this jacket is nice enough, seems about right at SAC prices. If I were paying retail I'd be pissed that all the zippers are just upside down to look stealthy, not actually waterproof. 4 stars for quality at discount and because the mystic blue is a sweet indigo in real life.

Take it for what it's worth, but the sizing is pretty extreme. I'm 5'7, 170 lbs with broad shoulders and an 8" drop. The medium must be made for a Viking because it's at least 4" too long and roomy in the torso--definitely not an athletic fit. Hey, no worries I'm a stocky guy and used to it. The strange part is that all of the extra length seems to be in the shoulders. If I pull up the jacket so that the armholes hit my pits, the torso and arms actually fit pretty well, but I get a huge bunch up of fabric behind my neck. So the ideal wearer would be something like 6' tall with enormous traps...like you would get from swinging a battle axe. Just sayin'.