Adam Riley - "Alone" Season 9 participant

When I was lucky enough to be se­lect­ed for sea­son 9 of “Alone” on the His­to­ry channnel, I knew my cloth­ing choic­es would be crit­i­cal to both my safe­ty and suc­cess.

I have long been a pro­po­nent of wool lay­ers. As both a pro­fes­sion­al shear­er and an outdoors­man, I have a lot ex­pe­ri­ence with both the warmth and strength of nat­ur­al wool prod­ucts, and I strong­ly be­lieve that this nat­ur­al ma­te­r­i­al is the best choice for cold and wet weath­er en­vi­ron­ments.

Sea­son 9 found us on the coast of Labrador, Cana­da, one of the cold­est and wettest lo­ca­tions that the show has ever filmed, and the per­fect out­er lay­er need­ed to wick mois­ture, block the wind, and pro­vide a strong in­su­lat­ing lay­er against snow and ice.

I had long de­sired a set of Mick­la­gaard trousers and anorak, and this wilder­ness ex­pe­ri­ence was the per­fect ex­cuse. Once I ac­tu­al­ly got them on and was able to spend some­time out­side, I was blown away by the qual­i­ty of the prod­uct. This is clothing that will tru­ly last a life­time.

I have done a lot of work with wool pro­cess­ing and tailor­ing my­self, so I un­der­stand what prop­er felt is sup­posed to look and feel like. It should be of con­sis­tent thick­ness. Good qual­i­ty felt will not “pill” or shed hairs. It shouldn’t itch and should be able to shed wa­ter and snow.

This was my first time owning Wad­mal fab­ric, the ma­te­r­i­al used to make Mick­la­gaard cloth­ing, and I was thorough­ly im­pressed with how it ex­ceed­ed all of my strict cri­te­ria for what good wool should do. The fin­ish work is also fan­tas­tic. The rein­deer leather trim both looks good and does its job of pro­tect­ing and re­in­forc­ing the seams and pock­ets.

On the Anorak, the large kan­ga­roo pock­et be­comes a catch-all for so many use­ful items that you want to car­ry with you. At var­i­ous times dur­ing my 52 days in Labrador, I used it as a berry and mush­room col­lect­ing pouch, a place to hold my mit­tens when not need­ed, and as a place to store my spare Go­Pro and bat­ter­ies. The pile lined pock­ets are an ad­di­tion­al de­tail that was great­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed. Slid­ing your hands into those pock­ets was like slid­ing them into warm pil­lows! The hood, when pulled tight, 2 can block wind and even dri­ving snow. It traps the warmth so well that I of­ten wore my hood with­out even a hat. Huge zip­pers along the sides make lay­er­ing with this anorak so easy, and also help to con­trol your tem­per­a­ture when you are mov­ing through the for­est.

The trousers also have so many small and well thought-out touch­es that I have nev­er found in oth­er out­er lay­ers I own. The ad­justable waist strap on the back of the trousers came in very handy, as dur­ing my stay I lost over 25 ki­los. The zip­pered vents on the thighs were very use­ful on those days that start cold, but warm up, as when you’re walk­ing through the for­est you can quick­ly vent with­out hav­ing to take the time to re­move lay­ers. The fit is very styl­ish. They are more of a Eu­ropean cut, and have a tai­lored fit with­out be­ing too bag­gy. I am a man that prefers sus­penders, and hav­ing the sus­pender but­tons was a big ben­e­fit for me. The car­go pock­ets on the thigh are both spa­cious and se­cure, and come in handy for stor­ing a pair of glove lin­ers or spare ammo. The but­tons and zip­pers all feel stur­dy and are very well stitched to the cloth­ing.

One thing that I re­al­ly ap­pre­ci­ate about wool out­er lay­ers such as this, is how effec­tive they are for hunt­ing. Syn­thet­ic out­ers have an an­noy­ing ten­den­cy to rus­tle and make noise while walk­ing that is un­nat­ur­al.

The Mick­la­gard anorak and trousers are whis­per qui­et, and make mov­ing through the brush qui­et­ly that much eas­i­er. Over­all, I have been thor­ough­ly im­pressed with Mick­la­gaard prod­ucts and their cus­tomer ser­vice. These are clothes you buy once and keep for a life­time. If you are plan­ning on be­ing out in true wilder­ness this win­ter, then get your­self a pair of trousers or anorak, you won’t re­gret it.

 The gear Adam Riley chose:

Anorak Abisko

Hamra Professional Pants

Gloves Varmullen

Winter Hat