Someday, if I am fortunate, I will meet a "good death" hopefully with my sword (or my spade) in hand and I will take my place among my comrades in Valhalla, "where the brave may live forever". When that fated day comes, I will most likely be wearing these REI Sahara Convertible Pants!
I own 5 pair of these pants, which is itself a glowing endorsement. I've tried, still own and occasionally wear other leading brands (like ex Officio, Marmot, Northface, Columbia and Railriders), and honestly, some have more and better features on them like hidden pockets, dedicated suspender loops, reinforced knees and seat, "left"/"right" tabs on the zip-off legs to make replacing them easier, conveniently placed utility pockets for knives, pens, lighters, etc.), but the good old REI Sahara's are considerably more cost effective for essentially the same basic nylon pant with zip-off legs that you get.
The North Face brand zip-off pants are great, packed with features (like labeled legs, knife/tool pockets, suspender loops), but come at a premium price. The Railrider brand zip off pants are probably the most durable pants I have ever worn. They are reinforced in the seat and knees and seem incredibly impervious to hard use. Again, if cost were no object, I would highly recommend Railriders. My last pair of Railriders lasted nearly 20 years! Finally, the only brand of zip-off pants that I would NOT recommend is the Ex Officio. I don't know why, but they seem to soften and break down readily after sun exposure. They fade rapidly. I find that they start to break down and shred/split after a couple of years (whereas my other pants have not, both pairs of my Ex Officios have literally fallen apart). In fairness, they do have a few nice value-added features, like soft sueded waist band for comfort, mesh trunks, integral nylon belt, and a waist closure button on nylon webbing instead of a snap or thread. Ex Officios also have this annoying idiosyncrasy of having only a single left cargo pocket.
The REI brand Safari pants are basically a 6-pocket design cargo pant. They have an integral nylon belt with belt channels that open at the right places so that you can still use suspender hooks. Note: when I'm in the field, I usually use suspenders to distribute the weight of the gear I carry in my pants pockets and belt. The pants are not lined. The trouser legs have convenient ankle zips, handy for boot wrangling, for changing pants without removing shoes, and for optional roll-up in hot weather or for wading. The cloth is very nicely sun-protective, stain-resistant, and very colour fast through years of sun exposure and repeated washings. The fabric does not have any propensity toward "pilling". The roominess, I found, is useful for layering (either an against the skin wicking layer or a Polartec insulating layer, or both in really cold weather).
Though relatively thin, the Sahara Pants are durable. I've put mine through some rough use (rock scrambles, crawling through caves, sliding down water chutes, whitewater rafting, general camping) and I still have all 5 pairs that I've accumulated through the years. The older ones are just more faded and have minor abrasions or tiny holes around the knees and seat. The zippers on the convertible legs have held out superbly (well beyond my expectation) and they don't seem to be a weak point.
If I have to mention a weak point... it is the right-side cargo pocket zipper. On two (of my newest pairs) the zipper has spontaneously jammed on me, for no discernable reason. Once while trying to get to my money out to complete a transaction, this zipper inexplicably locked closed. This left me tugging desperately on this right pocket with both hands in the middle of a marketplace while the local merchants stared at me as if I was crazy as I wrestled with my own right leg. They were wide-eyed as I eventually had to whip out my knife and cut the pocket open (through the zipper tape) to access my money clip. A good friend of mine has reported the same problem with this same right cargo pocket zipper. Odd.
You may then logically ask, "why was my money in this zippered cargo pocket?" Answer: the front pockets on this Sahara pant are strangely designed and inexplicably very shallow. If I sat down (on a couch, chair, a vehicle), I'd often find my wallet and keys had plopped out onto the seat next to me as there was just not enough pocket to hold them in. After several close calls (almost losing my wallet and car keys) the "secure" zippered cargo pocket seemed like the next best place to put it. So my money sits in there along with pamphlets, maps, airline tickets, and folded paperwork. The left side pocket has a convenient oblong sub-pocket which perfectly fits my hard sunglass case. I suppose you can drop your cell phone in there if you don't mind fishing it out every time it rings.
The Sahara pants are very comfortable to wear, day and night, with a roomy cut, and the zip-off feature is convenient for impromptu wading, warm weather hiking, comfortable driving, swimming and, for me, sleeping in when camping/sharing a cabin.They are very fast drying, and when I travel, I just use these as my swim trunks (rather than pack a separate pair). Note: Chlorinated pools seems to fade the colour gradually. Also, they are easy to wash in a sink or stream, wring out, and hang up to dry (in about 1 hour they'll be ready to wear). Of course while wilderness hiking or in a survival situation, I recommend that the pants NOT be used as shorts (to protect the legs from sun, brush, and fall abrasions). I generally only convert to shorts for swimming/wading, lounging around camp, and sleeping.
They used to be available in more colours too. I have khaki, grey, black, and 2 shades of olive green (my favourite). The black, which is no longer available, is useful for travel because it looks "dressier", from a distance, like slacks, and when worn with a nice shirt appears appropriately respectable in most restaurants, theatres, and churches/museums. In fact, travel is probably one of the best uses of these Sahara pants. They pack extremely light and compactly, like easily 2 pairs in the space of 1 pair of jeans (and twice the versatility!).
Like I said, I love these pants, and I keep buying new ones in a different colour every few years because I know I won't be disappointed. REI keeps adding new features and improvements to these pants every few years, like the latest version has a side-seam zipper along the zip-off legs section, allowing the pants to be more readily converted to shorts without having to remove footwear or do a precarious balancing act trying to feed your foot through.
I probably wear them more than any other pants that I own and they'd be my first choice to be wearing in an emergency. So as morbid as it may sound, I expect someday that they'll be the last pair of pants that I will be wearing, either to be buried in them (or my body found in them somewhere on a lonely glacier).
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