The Sisterhood of Our Traveling Pants

by Michelle Theall

Karina Evertsen has a hole in her pants. This might be more humorous than noteworthy if she weren’t the gear editor for Women’s Adventure and thus able to get her hands on a variety of apparel at any given time. The pants in question are a five-year-old pair of black (rather standard-issue) Patagonia Scythe, but the label is a bit hard to see beneath the silver duct tape Karina has used to splice the shredded vestige together. It’s 2007. I’m her boss. And we’re about to get on the lift at Vail. Rather than fire her, I mock her profusely and beg her to get a new pair of pants worthy of her position as a gear guru. Seriously, what does it say about our magazine when its gear editor wears an old pair of pants held together with tape?

When I ask Karina how the pants got so torn up, she tells me she left snacks in the pocket after a day on the slopes and her Great Dane/Ridgeback (named Hank) ate them (“them” meaning stale trail mix and said pants). So, normal wear and tear (for Karina this means halfpipe, boarding through thick pines, and skimming over rocks on her bum when the snow is scarce) can’t destroy the Patagonia pant, but a dog the size of a Palomino can. The pants haven’t been washed in eons because, of course, the tape would fall off and Karina can’t bear the thought of them disintegrating during the final (oh so final) spin cycle. She loves the pants.

When I decide to write about Karina’s love for the Patagonia pants, I ask her for details to help me flesh out the article. It’s August 2008 in our office in Boulder and 90 degrees outside. I expect Karina will have to go home and hunt through her winter gear to find them. Instead, she wheels around at her desk and grabs the pants off the floor.

“Should I ask?” I say after shielding my eyes from the glare of fluorescent lights off the silver-taped seams.

“I’m planning to send them back to Patagonia to see if they can be repaired before this season starts,” she says. “You know, they don’t make these anymore.”

I do know. I have a pair of Horny Toad shorts that have been with me up Kilimanjaro, across Wrangell–St. Elias in Alaska, and more recently within inches of a polar bear in Manitoba. They’ve served as stuffing for a makeshift pillow, a chamois to clean my sunglasses, and as regular office attire that I see fit for trade shows and meetings with just about anyone. And, nope, they don’t make them anymore. Had I known they were on the endangered list, I’d have bought up one (perhaps even two) of every color in my size. Alas. At the end of every summer, I pray that they’ll have one more season left in them.

The office at Women’s Adventure is our dream world, where we see and test just about everything before it ever hits the stores. Our UPS man, Joe, is Santa. Except better. Because Joe arrives daily bearing gifts – toys and clothes for the outdoors. So, I see nothing special about Karina’s pants. And, in return, she thinks my shorts are boring.

So I have to ask, “Come on, Karina. What’s so great about the pants?” She doesn’t think about it for very long before telling me, “It’s stupid; I know. But they were the first big-ticket item I purchased when I decided to take up snowboarding.” Then she adds, “Yes, they are supercomfortable and durable, but that’s not why I’ve continued to nurse them along. They have a story. It’s sentimental. It’s my story. And Hank’s eating them only makes the story better.”

Outdoor industry manufacturers have spent time and research hoping to find the secret to reaching women and capturing their hearts and loyal shopping dollars. All they really need to do is listen to Karina and the story of her pants because it’s never really been about the stuff. If it works and fits (and it better), we’ll take it to glacier-fed lakes and hot springs and on multipitch climbs. And if we take it on enough journeys, we’ll start to associate that thing with our glorious adventures. Then that single item (a backpack, a chalk bag, my shorts, or even Karina’s holy pants) becomes just like a photograph – etched with memory. River soaked. Campfire baked. Powder-day exhilarated. So bring on the duct tape and the needle and thread. Because if a pair of pants can make you smile, you’ve found something absolutely priceless.