Plus Size Ski Pants
Ah, downhill skiing. This has probably been the hardest category of gear for me, as a plus size (and short) woman. Ski pants turned out to be a different sort of problem from the normal outdoor clothing issues I have had. With something like hiking pants, I really just need them to be made in my size, but with ski pants I found some that were my size and found another problem. All the extra padding on top of my "extra padding" made it basically impossible for me to maneuver! So, I realized I needed thin ski pants so that I could still move and not reenact The Christmas Story scene with the younger brother.
I first tried my favorite pair of REI fleece lined leggings with rain pants. Sidebar: these are magical leggings that I'm not sure are even made anymore. They have some real Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants shit going on with them - I bought them (a size XL) when I was 21 years old and a size 16, at my largest last year, age 37 and a size 22/24 they still fit! They just stretch for days, and now that I've lost some weight and am closer to a size 20/22 they still fit like a glove. Seriously... magic.
Ok, back to the ski pants. So the rain pants were "okay" in that I could ski in them, but I just wasn't very comfortable. And they made weird swishing noises more than normal ski pants, which in turn made me self conscious all day.
So, I went back to the drawing board and after MANY hours of interneting, found these:
They actually run large (who has heard of such a thing!?), but they have Velcro tabs with elastic on the inside of the waistband to adjust the size. The pants have a softshell exterior and thin fleece lining, which makes them the perfect thickness (in my opinion) for skiing and other outdoor activities. They have the typical bell bottom pant bottom for over skis, so I don't think they'd be very good for hiking - there's just too much fabric down there, but for skiing or even just going outside to build snowmen with my daughter, they are perfect. I feel like I can move, and there's some stretch to the pant themselves which also helps.
For skiing, I still have a problem with my boots being too tight on my calves (there doesn't seem to be plus size boot options), but at least I have pants now that feel like real ski pants and not some cobbled together outfit.
Have you found other plus size ski pants that work? Let me know in the comments!
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