Keeping your hands warm in the extreme cold

[Ruud]

I always used Burton snowboarding-gloves, they've never let me down in any way.

But after my last trip I noticed the inner liner is loosing its insulation so I'm now on the lookout for Hestra's, fitted them yesterday in a shop, wonderful gear!

My girlfriend uses Black Diamond gloves, they're completely destroyed after 14 days in Swedish winter...

 

[mrcharly]

No personal experience of extreme cold, but plenty of experience of cycling in sub -10C conditions, sometimes with rain followed by temperatures dropping.

I find that skiing mittens are brilliant, coupled with totally waterproof and long overmitts. Used to use Northwave ones stocked by Browns from Llanberis but I don't think they have them anymore. Insulation plus complete blocking of the wind is important.

The overmitts, being just a shell layer, can be stored in a pocket and brought out when it gets colder or you aren't so mobile. Very important to keep wrists warm and I find it useful to have mitts loose enough for me to pull my thumbs in from the thumb bit and tuck them in with fingers. Riding for hours, your hands don't get much bloodflow and thumbs are stuck out by themselves. The real ice bikers swear by pogies on the bike (only really suitable for flat-barred bikes).

 

[rg598]

For me, I prefer gloves to mittens. When I'm active, mittens tend to be too warm, regardless of how cold it is, and I like to have some dexterity in my hands.

For me the gloves have to be waterproof, have liner gloves, and be as thin as the weather allows. Most of the time I use a pair of Outdoor Research (OR) Arete gloves. I've worn them down to under -50F. I got frost bite, but that's because I had to take off the gloves for a short period of time. If you need something warmer, the OR Alti or Alibi II gloves are great. If mitts are your thing, the Alti mittens are also good. All of them have liner gloves, lightweight insulation, and waterproof GoreTex shell. For the price I think they are hard to beat.

 

[mrcharly]

You must have amazing circulation, Ross, you are talking of much, much colder temperatures than I've ever experienced.
I find old injury spots (blows from hammers, kicks from horses, that sort of thing) go 'cold' very quickly. They develop distinctive white patches rimmed with pink.
So I end up using mitts that are sweaty-warm, just to stop those problems occurring. Of course I'm not experiencing arctic-temperatures and I've read that sweating is a really bad thing in true cold weather.

 

[Haggis]

Here, in Northern Minnesota, it gets fairly chilly. I only wear oversized, long cuffed, "lined" leather choppers over wool mittens. The leather mittens are about $20 at the local farm supply, and the same place sells wool mittens for about $10. Our winters can and routinely do get temps down to -40º, and sometime well beyond that. I snowshoe everyday in winter, and this mitten set-up is all I'll wear.

There is an old saying that goes, "If your feet are cold, put a hat on". I think that works for hands as well. If your head, and body, are kept warm, extra warm blood will be pumped to the extremities to cool it, but in winter, this extra warm blood will warm the hands. Then simply have well insulated mittens to conserve that heat.

 

[mrcharly]

Haggis, I strongly suspect that if you brought a crate of those mittens to the UK you'd sell them quicker than you could blink.