We went walking in the Odenwald in February. The winter was warm and at this time it had been fairly wet, so the paths were muddy and so were our boots. It started to rain. We still had an hour to go before lunch. The question was, should we put our waterproof over trousers? Our boots were muddy. There was nowhere to sit and so we would have to put them on standing up. It would take too long and the rest of the party wanted to go on. We went over trouser-less. We arrived at the pub dry above the waist, but looking like we had been wading in the Rhine below the waist.
The moral of this story is we need a pair of waterproof trousers that resemble normal trousers, so you don't need to slip on over trousers to stay dry. I was highly pleased to read in the Rohan catalogue/newsletter that Rohan had produced just such a pair: Dry Explorer and Dry Requisite. Unfortunately Rohan doesn't send us its gear to test and the nearest Rohan shop is in Canterbury, Kent, an 8 to 9 hour drive away, so we will have to wait until we next go to the UK to check out these trousers. I'll probably wait until Rohan sell the rest of this year's models off in November or so to buy a pair. However Rohan's descriptions are normally honest and it is claimed that the trousers are waterproof, so it is probably true. We sent a couple of spies to Manchester to check out the trousers in the store there. Their report: "We have been to Rohan in Manchester - the waterproof trousers look and feel great but take 8 hours to dry after washing and are £95 to buy. They do not look like the usual waterproof trousers, just like ordinary material ( eg:- wool or cotton ), that is very good."
