Ditale Outside Sofia Journey Pant Overview

Opinion: Most women’s hunting pants suck. There. I said it. I’ve also found that most women’s-specific brands just don’t have the backing to put into the gear that’s needed to create a functional, comfortable pair of good ol’ leg sheaths. Nearly every “women’s” brand I’ve worn just wasn’t up to snuff, though I think a big shift is on the horizon.

It then likely doesn’t need to be said that I went into testing the Ditale Outdoors Sofia Adventure Pants with some long-built biases. I’m hard on women’s brands because I want them to be better than their counterparts. I hold a women’s brand to a higher standard, and for the most part, unfortunately, I’ve been bummed.

The big hunting names just have the finances to put toward creating the best gear, even if it means that women only get one product for every 20 men’s products in their lineup (and that’s being generous).

I waited pretty patiently to get my hands on the Sofia Adventure Pant. Now that I’ve put them through some field time, do I really feel like they measure up?

In short: The Ditale Outdoors Sofia Adventure Pant lives up to the ever-growing hype. They are substantial, fairly rugged, comfortable, and more than worth your dime. They may not be perfect, but dangit, they’re close.

Ditale Outdoors Sofia Pant 1.0 Review

Overview

I’ve had the Ditale Adventure Pants for a full season now. Well, to be honest, it’s been a bit longer than a full season. I wanted to really put them through the wringer, and with this fall and winter being as mild in weather as it was, I knew I couldn’t put forth a legitimate review without dragging them beyond the late season.

I wore them elk hunting in Montana in the early September heat. They graced a deer hunt in Texas in, well, even more heat. I wandered into Oklahoma with them for a combination of heat and cold. They’ve fed hounds and chickens. They’ve hiked, and they’ve fished. Now, the pants have finally seen snow.

And because Ditale Outdoors listened to its customer base, the version I’ve been testing is now the Sofia Adventure Pant 1.0 because they’ve made suggested changes/improvements and released the 2.0 version. I can’t speak to this next run of the Sofia Pant, but hear me out on the first generation.

Where the Sofia Adventure Pant Shines

The Fit

These pants are not designed to fit a mannequin. They are clearly designed to fit real women in the real world. With sizing that runs from an XXS Regular to a 3X Curvy, the brand really set out to make a configuration to work for the female figure.

I kid you not: Ditale makes an XXS Curvy pant and a 3X Regular pant. For the tiny women who still have curves and the big, boxy girls who can bench press me, two words: thank you. Thank you for recognizing that women come in all configurations of size and all configurations of shape.

The Flex

Oooooooooh, mama, these things move. Squat, bend, wiggle, sleep, stretch, climb, fall, sit: the pants just go ahead and follow suit. Now, I only do the stretch in every way I want them to; the rise was perfect for me. I didn’t experience sag (until I did some slimming up through the season, as we tend to do).

Even with the midseason fitness changes, the pants still sat well, even with extra room. I added my Argali belt and kept on keeping on. I can’t describe how big of a deal that typical pant sag is for me. In all the ways I was endowed as a woman, my backside is ski-slope flat. If they don’t sag on me, they won’t sag on practically anyone. (Insert the ’90s-era “Do these pants make my butt look big?” and me saying, “I wish.”)

The Fortitude

They’re tough. Actually, they’re a lot tougher than I expected. The material is soft to the touch, and I am hard on fabric. Though more rugged than I expected, they aren’t true brush pants. If you’re venturing through the pokies, things like thistle and hawthorn are going to give you a jab and let some blood. To be fair, I’ve had hawthorn stab through a leather boot.

In regular conditions, even in moderate brush, the pants held up and kept my legs from being chewed up. The roomy lower leg/bootcut style offers some give where more fitted pants often falter. The material is heavy, and I like that. It still breathes but gives you that feeling of having your legs protected without the need for a base layer.

Where the Sofia Pant Could Be Better

No product is perfect. That being said, the gripe I have with the Sofia Pant is less a flaw and more a personal preference. Aside from wishing they had back pockets, which I can technically live without, it all came down to the hem.

The Snap-Adjustable Hem (An Issue That I Solved, More or Less)

I wanted to love this. I am so short. Pants are almost always too long for me. The idea of being able to easily adjust the hem length with a quick snap was something appealing to my genetically inferior stems. The issue I had was two-fold, pun intended.

The first came from the added weight and bulk. The bottom half of the pant leg is just, well, heavy. The wide-cut and added snaps can lead to what I can only refer to as swing-swosh legs. The extra material is great for keeping your legs safe from pokes and jabs, but with all the added material, it really feels a little weighty.

The second fold of my two-fold snap adjustable hem issue is exactly that: the fold. I trek through some gross stuff. If I’m not near death from heat stroke in the early season, I’m knee-deep in the nasty the rest of the year.

Without gaiters, I found that the fold of the hem, which flips the bottom of the pant leg in and up, tended to collect things. It was packed with mud when I was trudging through an unexpected wet stretch of elk season and filled with snow just recently, which then melted and refroze into little icy weights on the ends of my legs.

The Easy Solution?

Cut it off. I’m short, so I had that hem flipped dang-near to my knee. I’ve had to hem almost every pair of pants I’ve owned, so this isn’t a huge issue. The only lasting hangups would be for tall folks. You’re still going to have all that extra weight from those snaps. (Finally, a perk to being vertically challenged.)

Sofia Adventure Pant 2.0 Upgrades

The sign of a good company is the willingness to listen to its customers and make real changes. With the next generation of pant, the brand listened to its customer base and made some upgrades.

Our Sofia 1.0 was amazing with its features, fit, and function, and the 2.0 builds on our initial success. We pride ourselves on listening to our new and current Ditale customers. They asked for a few things, including back pockets, more adjustment options for our inseams, more stable belt loops to handle a tactical belt, and more sturdy knife area on both front pockets. We also removed the suspender loops because our adjustable and stretch waistband fit so many women that the women who ordinarily needed suspenders did not need them on the Sofia pants. We have made these upgrades for Sofia 2.0 with all the same loved features, fit and function as our wildly popular Sofia 1.0.

— Ditale Outdoors Designer and Product Developer, Summer Meyer

So, Is the Sofia Adventure Pant Worth Considering for Your Hunting Season?

That dang hem aside, yup. Honestly, I don’t even know if that hem will bother most people. I’m just in my hunting pants more than most. These pants are awesome, particularly if you don’t fall into the traditional “sample size” seen on the runway. I haven’t stepped foot into the new version with the updates yet, but the OG Sofia Pant 1.0 is still worth its weight (that’s my final tiny jab at the hem of a fantastic pant).

One of the biggest perks of a new version of a solid product being released is this: the Ditale Outdoors Sofia Adventure Pant 1.0 will very likely go on sale until the inventory runs out. That’s good news for those of us who want to get into a pair of hunting pants that will get you through the season comfortably, even without the new upgrades.

I’ll be looking forward to getting my hands on the new version, and you can count on GearJunkie to give you an update on what’s good with Sofia version 2.0.