Buffalo gear is fantastic and well worth the money. Whilst technical clothing may seem excessive for running around the woods shooting each other with toy guns, it is essential to enjoying the colder weather. As with most of the kit on our kit list it seems unnecessary until you actually get it and then you have trouble remembering how you coped without it. The basic principle of the double P system is that the Pile keeps you warm, even when wet, and the Pertex keeps the wind out. I wear the Special 6 shirt and trousers underneath my Bekas BDUs for really cold winter and overnight games. On ‘warmer’ days I wear a belay jacket over a merino wool base layer and Teclite trousers (a thinner version of the Special 6 trousers). At Spartan the ground tends to retain moisture and in the winter you will inevitably get wet trousers from walking through foliage and sitting or lying on the ground. Buffalo gear won’t keep you dry but it will keep you warm without being too bulky. It also dries out as you move about so by the end of the day you’ll find that even if you got soaked early in the day you will be reasonably dry. The Special 6 shirt can get really hot when you move about so there are zips on either side (‘pit zips’) to allow air in and out. This is a really handy feature but I found that it doesn’t work well underneath your outer layers, so I opted for the belay jacket with a front zip which I find easier to ventilate when moving about.
