Ditch Your Hiking Pants for Overalls: Allover Apparel Lookout Review

Even though I’ve been backpacking for over a decade, there’s one perennial problem I can’t seem to solve. No matter what combo of pants, pack, and shirt I choose, I’m either left with a wedgie or the hip belt pack resting on my skin. The latter results in bruising and chafing, especially as the miles on the trail add up.

Thus, when I first heard about Allover Apparel’s Lookout Overalls, overalls made for outdoor activities, I was intrigued. Since it’s a one-piece pair of pants, with no gap between the torso and legs, maybe my problem would be solved. There would be no place for the pack to touch my skin.

The brand says the product is technical and made for adventure, featuring a bathroom-friendly zipper. In a world where nearly every outdoor brand makes hiking pants, maybe overalls are the next evolution in outdoor apparel.

So, I put these sporty overalls with trail-friendly features to the test on California’s Trans Catalina Trail. Over 42 miles and 4 days, I wore these overalls nonstop, hiking up 1,000 feet of elevation and slogging through muddy descents.

After the hike, I’ve become a full-on overalls convert.

In short: The Allover Apparel Lookout Overalls ($158) are well-made with a durable fabric that can withstand a lot of use and abuse. They offer seven deep pockets, far more than typical women’s pants, and the stretchy one-piece design is the most comfortable I’ve ever felt wearing a backpacking pack. They are more expensive than normal hiking pants, but their versatility and style make them well worth the price.

Check out GearJunkie’s guide to the Best Hiking Pants for Men and the Best Hiking Pants for Women.

Allover Lookout Overalls Review

Allover Apparel The Lookout Overalls Review

Design & Materials

The overalls are made with a Bluesign-approved blend of 94% recycled polyester and 6% spandex. The straps are elastic and have plastic buckles instead of metal ones.

You adjust the straps’ length with the sliders, but you don’t actually undo the overalls from the straps. Instead, there is a long zipper on one side that you use to get in and out and to go to the bathroom.

There are seven pockets: two on the front, two on the back, two on the exterior of the chest, and one on the interior. The Lookout Overalls are available in sizes XS to XL and come in three colors: Deep Ink (navy), Moss (light green), and Clay (a brownish orange).

Fit

I am 5’6″ and typically wear size medium or 29/8 in women’s pants. According to the overalls’ size chart, I was between a medium and a large, so I decided to size up for comfort, and that was the right call. That allowed me enough space to layer on a fleece beneath the overalls. The fit is slim, with a slight nip in at the waist, but not overly tight. The legs have the fit of a straight jean.

Sometimes overalls and jumpsuits can fit weirdly in the crotch. These fit like normal hiking pants, though, even though the waistband isn’t adjustable. The shoulder straps are highly adjustable, and after some tinkering, I found the right setup. The waistband hit me at about my natural waist, and the legs were just the right length with shoes on.

Comfort

One of my main concerns with the overalls was how they’d feel with a pack on. I was worried that the straps of my pack would press against the plastic buckles and dig into my shoulders. However, it didn’t. The way I adjusted them, the pack didn’t sit directly on the buckles. Most of the weight in your pack is in your hips anyway, and the buckles are slim and low-profile enough that it wasn’t an issue.

The enemy of every hiker is chafing. I dreaded what might happen with the overalls in this department. Any time you get extra fabric or a different fit involved, there’s an opportunity for irritation.

After 4 days on the trail, I was shocked that I didn’t experience a single ounce of chafing anywhere. That was even when the overalls got wet in a torrential downpour.

And with my body totally covered without a gap from my chest to my legs, there was no opportunity for my pack to rub or chafe against my lower back or hips. I was concerned that hiking in the overalls might cause them to ride up over time and give me a wedgie, but they stayed put.

Warmth & Breathability

Ironically, it was actually colder in California when I was hiking there than at my home in the Midwest. In the mornings, temps dipped into the 40s. The bib of the overall extending over my waist and onto my chest and back added warmth. For most of the trip, I wore a merino T-shirt, a long-sleeve long-underwear shirt on top, and overalls.

Unless you want to take every layer off every time you have to go to the bathroom, you’ll want to layer underneath the overalls. Since I had sized up slightly, I could easily fit my lightweight fleece underneath.

They are definitely not the most breathable pants I’ve ever worn. On a few sunny days, temperatures reached into the 70s. When hiking uphill, I definitely started to heat up, and could feel the sweat on my legs. I didn’t get sweaty under the straps, but I did have to eventually roll up the legs on a steep uphill.

At any temperature above the 60s, I would wear shorts instead of these overalls. While the fabric is lightweight, it’s not summer hiking lightweight.

Performance & Durability

On my trip to Catalina, I was hiking up a significant ascent (about 1,000 feet) when a thunderstorm struck. I was getting utterly pelted with rain, with the wind blowing so hard I had to use my poles to not fall over. I put on a rain jacket, so just my legs got wet. While the fabric wasn’t soaked through, it was quite damp. When the sun came out later, they dried within 2 hours.

As a consequence of that storm and several others, the trail was a sea of mud. The legs of the overalls were covered in mud up to my knees. After I washed them when I got home, they looked good as new, with no staining or piling. They also didn’t contain a semblance of a smell. That is impressive considering how stinky I was after I finished the trail.

Pockets

If you ask women what they would change about their pants, the answers will undoubtedly involve pockets. I’d give the pockets on the Lookout Overalls an A+. The pockets in the front were deep enough to hold my iPhone in its case (which most women’s hiking pants don’t). They sat low enough that I could still use them with my pack on.

The interior and exterior chest pockets were quite handy. When it was raining hard, I put my phone in the interior zipped pocket to keep it dry. If you were traveling in a foreign country and wanted to keep something like a passport safe, I highly doubt even the most skilled pickpocket could get in there. I put fruit snacks, nuts, and gummies in the exterior snap pocket. It was easy to grab a quick bite while still actively hiking and using my trekking poles.

Style

These overalls might not be everyone’s style, but they certainly were mine. I’ve gotten multiple compliments about how cute they are. They do give a certain vibe of “granola girl chic” to an outfit, which I’m here for.

Like any jumpsuit or overall, they also make you look put together without much effort. In my daily life, I’d wear one of my favorite long-sleeve floral shirts underneath, suit up in the overalls, add some Birkenstocks, and be good to go about my day.

A Note on Price

The Allover Apparel Lookout Overalls retail for $158. While this is not cheap, it’s only about $60 more expensive than my go-to hiking pants, prAna’s Halle II Pants ($98).

Looking at GearJunkie’s Best Hiking Pants for Women, spending around $100 for pants is (sadly) normal these days. Our favorite picks, including Outdoor Research’s Ferrosi Pants and Black Diamond’s Alpine Light Pants, cost $110 and $149, respectively. And heck, pants from some brands like Arc’teryx and Hikerkind easily go over $160.

To me, the functionality and durability of the overalls make them worth an extra $60. Even after everything I put them through, they look good as new, and I’m confident they’ll last for many thru-hikes to come.

Room for Improvement

I have only a few minor complaints about the Lookout Overalls. As previously mentioned, I think they’re too heavy to wear while being active in warmer weather.

The available sizing is also quite limited. I wear a size 29 (size 8) in pants. I wore a large, but the available sizes only go up to XL. If you typically wear plus-sized apparel, it’s unfortunately unlikely that Allover Apparel will fit you.

I loved the navy color. (Who doesn’t love a dark neutral?) However, I find the brand’s other greens and oranges to be somewhat lackluster. In the future, it’d be fun if Allover offered additional colors or even maybe some prints.

The Bathroom Question

With overalls, the question of how to use the bathroom is an obvious one. These overalls have a long side zipper and a drop seat. Allover Apparel says that to go to the bathroom, “You zip down the side of the overalls and move the fabric around your bottom. The straps provide enough stretch that it’s very easy to pull the fabric around.”

For me, this didn’t work. I had to undo the zipper and take off the straps to go to the bathroom comfortably. If I didn’t take the straps off up and over my head, I felt like I was being contorted just in order to pee. This wasn’t a huge deal, since I was wearing a T-shirt underneath, so I was no more unclothed than I would be when going to the bathroom in the woods.

If you are wearing any layer (like a rain jacket) over the overalls, that adds an extra step. First, you have to remove that layer before you can unzip and remove the straps. If you’re familiar and comfortable with drop seats (like on ski bibs), this might feel less of a hassle.

None of this is a dealbreaker for me. Really, nothing about the overalls changes how I have to go to the bathroom outside, except for having to take off layers. If you’re used to squatting outside to pee, this is basically the same.

Allover Apparel Lookout Overalls: Who They Are For

Finding a good pair of hiking pants can be a challenge, and if you’re tired of wedgies, chafing, or waist bands that don’t sit quite right, the Lookout Overalls might be the solution. They eliminate any awkward bunching of a shirt beneath a pack’s waist belt or pants that ride up as you hike.

Allover has solved many problems with women’s pants, including adding actually functional pockets. I also appreciated that while the fit of the overalls was slim, it wasn’t skin-tight. If I buy pants, I want them to fit like pants, not leggings.

The Lookout Overalls are also super-versatile. I can’t say I’d wear any of my other hiking pants to meet a friend at a coffeeshop, but I’d don these overalls in a heartbeat.

I put these pants through hell on my thru-hike of Catalina, and they stood up to every challenge I threw at them, including thunderstorms and falling into a pool of mud.

If you’ve already got a pair of hiking pants that you love, congrats. If you don’t, give the Lookout Apparel Overalls a try. The brand is offering a fresh reinvention of hiking apparel that is both fun and cute. For those looking to mix up their outdoor wardrobes and add a bit of gorpcore to their daily style, Allover Apparel’s The Lookout Overalls are the ticket.