In the late 80s, a couple of years after parachute pants had gone out of style, my family went up to Canada to visit my Aunt. We were going to go hiking in the Canadian Rockies, and she insisted that we all wear some used parachute pants. The reason was that they blocked the wind, and they only took about 15 minutes to dry after you got them wet, so there was less danger of cramping from the cold at high altitudes.