Skin-to-Shell: The Stratum™ Layered Zipper System
Hunting pants get put through the paces, literally and figuratively. Bad puns aside, busting brush, traversing scree, and crawling through cactus-filled coulees all take its toll on a pair of pants. With this in mind, we build every pair of Stone Glacier Pants to be highly durable to meet the demands of hunters season after season.
One of the challenges of making a durable, long-lasting pant is accounting for the wide range of conditions and temperature fluctuations a hunter goes through over the course of a hunt. If you make a pair of pants too rugged, you sacrifice mobility and breathability. Make a pant too featherlight, and it will never stand up to the rigors of the hunt. And unlike shirts and jackets, pants are not a layer you can easily add or shed in the field.
As with any innovation, we began our development process because we were unsatisfied with our options. Our team has worn about every hunting pant and technical mountain pant available, and we knew there was room for improvement.
We launched the De Havilland Pant in 2019 as the first hunting pant of its kind. The SG Contour Waist™ System enables a perfect fit every time — regardless of fluctuations in your layers or weight — and also ensures your pack will wear seamlessly over your pants without bunching or shifting under your hip belt. The De Havilland Pant also included a key feature that eventually cascaded down to almost every pair of pants and bottoms we make: the Stratum™ Layered Zipper System.
This unique system allows the wearer to vent their layers all the way to the skin for unprecedented temperature regulation without requiring the repetitive addition and removal of layers throughout the day. Increase warmth by keeping all the zippers closed during extended glassing sessions and unzip to quickly ventilate and dump heat during periods of high exertion. No matter the situation, the Stratum™ Layered Zipper System makes temperature regulation easier than ever.
Because this system allows instant ventilation, we were able to use more durable, weather-resistant textiles in our pants. While the textiles in the De Havilland Pant, De Havilland Lite Pant, and M5 and M7 Pants are all breathable, we are able to err on the side of durability and weather resistance in their fabrics and construction because heat can easily be dumped via the Stratum™ System.
While it may seem simple, the benefit for hunters is significant. This integrated system allows the wearer to instantly vent from skin to shell during rapidly changing weather conditions, varying levels of activity, and changing seasons from August through winter . Even in frigid, wet conditions, you could vent the M7 Pant all the way to your skin through the Helio Bottoms when a glassing session turns into a mad dash to the ridge for a shot.
We also understand that a pair of technical hunting pants is a substantial investment, and we stand by our guarantee that Stone Glacier hunting pants will perform exactly as you need them to in the field through any kind of abuse you and Mother Nature can throw at them.
