Black Diamond Super Light Mitts

Cold fingers no more. Waterproof shell, decent insulation, and a long wrist cover keeps the cold out.

My wife suffers from cold hands. Smaller gloves are great for ascending when we are working hard. But the peak and descent = cold. Enter the BD Super Light Mitts. These are a premium glove with great materials and a good amount of insulation. We've tested these on numerous high elevation >9k feet summits and they are worth their weight. The size small tops the scale at 8.7 oz. Below you can see the cinches on upper section to keep them tight to your wrist.

Inside the glove is a fuzzy material on the bottom, I assume to help grip, and a smooth insulated top. This combo works well. But the gloves are so large that no matter what they do to help grip, these gloves will reduce your dexterity substantially.

Also on the inside, the finger orientation is a little strange. The index finger is separate from the rest of the fingers in the top 3" (down to the second knuckle). We found this sometimes left the index finger cold and it really didn't help with dexterity. So, I'm not really sure why BD opted for this design. My wife did find her index finger would get cold on occasion and she had to tuck that index finger in with the rest to keep all fingers cozy.

Wrist leashes are tied on and can be removed. But we found them useful as we have to take the gloves off to do much of anything. Try unwrapping a granola bar while wearing these; it provides a fun/impossible challenge. 

As with any glove, the trick is to put them on while your fingers are still warm or to put on a warmed glove. We found these pack down small enough that we can put them in our internal jacket pockets. This keeps the gloves near your body and it's lovely to put on a warm pair of gloves. We have several other pairs of mittens/gloves that simply don't pack down as well as these. We found even on hikes where we may not need these, there are small enough and light enough that we bring them just in case. 

The shell is a 15 D nylon and the leather is also quite thin. So some care will be needed in the handling of these gloves. The leather palm does lap over the top of the gloves, so there is some extra protection in the fingertips where it's needed. The leather palm is soft and does allow for a great grip on poles/ice axes. So far we have had no issues with cuts or tearing. 

There were an expensive investment, but staying warm in high elevations is critical and cold, wet gloves can ruin a trip, so we took the leap.

Background

We own literally a box filled with gloves from different manufactures for different uses.