I am getting to the point where I sometimes cannot remember if I brought something up on the forum....... or not. I searched and didn't find a post about it so I am going to bring it up.
A few years ago they found George Mallory's body on Mt. Everest. He died on the mountain in 1924 as a member of the British Everest Expedition. When they found him he was still wearing much of the clothing that the expedition records said that they used and it got someone at the BBC to thinking and they decided to duplicate the clothing and go to Everest with it and see how it worked.
Here is a link to the clothing:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5076634.stmI snowshoe a bit, cross country ski once in a while too and what I do nearly every day, when the temperature is below freezing, is check the cattle and stock water tanks. In the past I used stuff like Carhartt coveralls, a canvas coat, and similar. I have used a lot of different gear including Gore-tex, waxed cotton, and wool. It all works well but it is all kind of heavy. After they found Mallory?s body on Everest I got interested in how the duplicated clothing performed. One of the BBC guys wore a set to Everest and they reported on its performance. It was surprising to them how well it worked at Everest conditions and altitude. It was silk, wool, and gabardine outerwear. It was Lighter weight clothing than current technology dictates. It won't replace Everest wear but it did open some eyes. I thought about this and wanted to see what I could put together that would be light and warm and work well for temperatures down to about zero or a bit less. I cannot duplicate what they did, of course, but I did come up with a few workable solutions for a lightweight cold weather outfit that lets me move about easily.
Normally, as noted, I am out and about every morning to check stock water tanks and feed bunks and make sure the cows are still where they are supposed to be (on my side of the fences). My usual cold weather gear is a pair of muck boots, long underwear, jeans, a hooded sweatshirt over a flannel shirt, a pair of overalls, gloves, a Stormy Kromer wool hat, and a silk cowboy scarf. Sometimes I will wear a Empire Canvas and Wool wool hooded coat in place of the hooded sweatshirt.
Here is what I put together:
boots: Neos overshoes over insulating wool inserts and two pair of medium weight wool socks.
Long underwear: polypropylene two piece
shirt: wool button front medium weight
upper layer: 300 weight polar fleece jacket (zip front and no hood)
outer layer: microfiber zip front wind jacket with hood
second layer on lower body: polar fleece pants
outer layer on lower body: microfiber wind pants
gloves: Wool mittens with leather or canvas over mittens
hat: alpaca wool Peruvian style hat.
other: Acrylic neck warmer or silk cowboy scarf
Here is what it looks like on: Ignore the tennis shoes and gloves. My mittens are in the truck and my boots are in the house.

I wanted to share this simply because I have found it to work very well in temperatures from 30F down to 10 below and it blocks wind as well as anything I have worn.