Haglöfs Rugged II Mountain Pants

Dave takes the updated, ultimate mountain pants from Haglöfs for a test.

Performance *****

Style****

Value*****

Extremely durable, fully featured stretchy hybrid trekking pant

Back in 2011 we tested the Haglöfs Rugged Mountain Pants. The we concluded that the pants would be a great 3 season mountain pants for a variety of mountain activities.

This season I have been testing the updated Haglöfs Rugged II Mountain Pants so how have they been improved?

The style is very similar to the original Rugged Mountain Pants and the sizing is the same. A size medium was a 32” waist and expanded to a 33”. They are still incredibly burly and well made with triple stitching and bar tacking . I have worked for two years in the original Rugged Mountain pants and they are still going strong showing very little signs of serious wear.

Haglofs Rugged 2 pants are great for anything the mountain can throw at them.

One good improvement is the addition of a Velcro fastener on the waistband, the waistband is elasticated at the back but is held in place with two vecro fastening. This helped keep the trousers up, especially when they were wet. I did state in the original review that the pants would have benefitted from some braces loops, they are still missing from the Rugged II Mountain Pants. At 770g a pair I had to cinch them up tight to stop the legs becoming too long.

The colour scheme has also changed from an orange inner trim to fluorescent green. This worked OK as most of it is contained inside the pants. The pockets are still great and the voluminous thigh pockets have proved very useful when working and when winter climbing. The inner phone pocket now holds an iphone or other medium sized smartphone, but probably not the bigger sizes – this is an area that Haglöfs can’t win on as phones change so rapidly. The size is good though for most sensibly sized phones.

The materials are still the excellent Climatic with hardwearing knees and seat. The material is now much softer, making the Haglöfs Rugged II Mountain Pants very nice to wear. In the original review I stated that the pants would be good for winter mountaineering and so they have proved to be – for active mountaineering they have been excellent. For technical climbing I have worn a merino wool ¾ length baselayer and they have been great.

Good freedom for technical mountaineering.

The adjustable hems and lace hook have also proven useful as I can quickly cinch them up when walking through boggy ground.

The Rugged II Mountain Pants were great for alpine climbing.

So, the Haglöfs Rugged II Mountain Pants are a good update on the original pants. So burly it’s unreal and they really have lasted years and will do so for years to come. Come October through to March they are my pants of choice for all UK activities. I wore them recently for an Alpine trip and they performed there too. Professionally I wouldn’t be without them for any big boot type of day. A great update and well worth the money and with it having the Bluesign label you can be assured it’s been manufactured with respect for the environment.

Sizes come in XS to XXXL and colours are Black and Juniper (Green)

SRP £150.00

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