Rain Gear

Status: 80% In
Weight: Jacket--386 grams, Pants--216 grams
Mods: None (yet). Will adjust hood cinch on jacket if I take it.
Alternatives: DriDucks or Frogg Toggs. They are lighter but bulky, less reliable, more prone to damage, and less stylish (which I don't normally care about, but I do like plain black rain pants for wearing in public). Other lighter alternatives cost a lot more money, which I think I'd rather spend on other things.

Want to see some people argue on the internet? Go into just about any hiking forum and ask about rain gear, especially rain pants. For this trip, I'm using what I've got, which is some heavy but warm rain gear. Part of the reason I'm sticking with what I have is that I know I can use these with some thermal layers if it is miserably cold and wet. Some of the worst weather to hike in is 33 degree rain. Snow is drier, so it's better if it just snows. The rain gear I have is pretty warm, so I know I'll be ok with it if there's some nasty spring storms on the trail.

Jacket
Patagonia Torrentshell Women's XL

I got yellow so I could be visible while riding my bike in the rain. I heard bears might like bright colors, though, too. Thankfully, they don't seem to pay as much attention to color in wooded areas.

While it stuffs down into its own pocket, at over 13 oz, this is no featherweight. The newer versions of this jacket are a couple ounces lighter, and I've used it enough to know it's going to do what I want it to do. It has big pit zips under the arms for ventilation, and it's big enough to fit over all my other layers if I need it to. I could lose close to 10 oz by switching to some of the uber-light jackets out there, but at $200+ for the lightest ones, I'm just not going to do it. ZPacks has this UL cuben fiber jacket if you are starting from scratch with your gear and have a lot of money. This jacket is definitely weightier than I'd like, but I guess I just need to hit the treadmill a bit more to make up for it!

Pants
Rain pants are a subject of much discussion on those hiker forums I mentioned earlier. At the moment, Rain Kilts are all the rage. However, I use my pants for insulation, too, and wear them when I'm doing laundry. I don't think a see-through kilt is going to cut it for that. Lots of people go with Frogg Toggs or Dri Ducks or something similar. I got these pants when I switched to a recumbent bike and figured out that the seams in the crotch weren't taped. Recumbent bicycles expose your nether regions to more rain than regular bikes, and showing up to work looking like I'd wet myself meant a trip to the store for rain pants. The only problem was that we were living in a desert and they weren't particularly easy to come by. Since I have bigger hips, I really need to try on pants before I buy them. These Hi-Tec ones were what I found. I think they were $20.

They are close to 10 oz, but they really are waterproof, even in heavy rain. These plus the wool tights I always take on trips will keep me plenty warm down below freezing. Hopefully it won't be that cold, but I'd like to be prepared. The rain kilt linked above is only 2 oz, and their rain pants are 3 oz (and just a little more than $20!) but I'd like some chance of staying mostly dry if it gets that cold. My legs don't sweat much, so I don't worry about that as much as some people.