Mitts for minus 40

[tkkn c]

Who has been in -40F/C or below, and what did you do for mitts to keep your hands warm?

[AK Granola]

If you are active and moving, a thin liner glove plus a good insulated mitten should suffice. A waterproof overmitt can help with wind. And I always keep a pair of thick down mittens in my pack, just in case. And chemical hand warmers, always available. You really have to keep moving at that temperature. Whatever your activity will be will determine exactly the type of mitten you need.

[Ryan Jordan]

I wear power stretch 400 liners under the RBH Vapor Mitts with Altitude inserts. At 40 below, if there’s any kind of wind, the mitts stay on, always!

[Chris R]

A thin liner glove, Foxx double rag mitts and then either a MYOG canvas outer mitt or if I’m cutting firewood an XXL moose hide chopper mitt. A lot of folk wear big snowmobile mitts but I find them too heavy and bulky. I find a lot of commercially made mitts are not breathable enough and become damp inside. I guess a way around this problem would be to add a nitrile glove over the liner to act as a vapour barrier.

[peter v]

been to -35*F and if not towing/working with initiative, the RBH vapor mitts (which are a lifesaver) sort’a want to be backed up with something like a buffalo mitt, or a decent mid glove. once you are puttering along, a mid glove and pogies will do the trick. but … and it can be breezy mind you, and then you eventually need to stop, at lower temps it can become no-joke in pretty fast.

that said, wristies + handwarmers (spare set warmed in breast pocket) and  fleece somethings covered with RBH’s, and set camp before cooling off, is a good plan.

do not be fooled by reading about absurdly low temp adventures, which are normally written about at a high altitude. that air is thinner, and thusly both quite a bit less conductive, a better insulator, and a vastly faster “water evaporator”. in real life, near sea level, alone, with no trees, something like -20*F is darn cold. that is true, even for the Inuit, who are hella durable.

certainly people have for ages lived/thrived in such temps. it’s not the living that’s awkward, it’s the traveling that can bring up issues. we’re more vulnerable once away from our structures. what do the Inuit do about this ? will for one, they travel/hunt in poopy weather in groups. they almost universally seem to wear wolf-skin mitts, which are removed for only the few seconds it takes to rig a sled (kamik). all such outside tasks are distilled down to that level. lastly, they seem to be not only culturally patient, such as waiting for favorable weather, but genetically patient. they know how to wait, and they know what happens if you don’t. so, they do.

; two layers of thin merino, one of which is a hoody + a fleece union suit + a wool balaclava + a pagonia nano air hoody + a turtle fur neck thingie + a bomber hat + an extremely effective googles-face mask + RAB dryloft pants + thin gloves + RBH mitts + merino wool socks + leather boots + fleece insulated gaiters ( peter’s invention ) + all of that layered under a Western Mountaineering Ion Parka + and that is about correct to set camp @ -30*F. if i walk inside (even just a tent) dressed like that, things will overheat/fog up, in seconds.

certainly, you can get away with a thick and then layer of wool under caribou skin outerwear, wolf-skin gloves and muckluks, but … that’s not going to be at all flexible as the weather clears. it is just miserable unless you’ve got something else along with you.

what do Inuit do sans that face thing i built ? they wear goggles fore sure. nice ones too. and they fit their hoods with a fur ruff. a ruff makes big difference, by taking the velocity out of the blasting wind. the traditional ruff’d tunnel hood is quite the aboriginal high tech game changer.

sorry that ran long. oops …

v.

 

 

 

 

[Steve S]

Peter, perhaps you should have mentioned the length of time you expect to spend in the wind and blowing snow while setting up your tent and rigging the bear fence — at sea level — with no trees or other cover around to blunt that wind. A lot less gear is needed for winter travel almost anywhere but the polar regions, even at the rare times the temperature gets that low .

You make me feel so much sympathy for polar bears.

[Steve S]

 

 

[Eric Blumensaadt]

As a Nordic ski patroller for the 1979 pre-Olympics I used nylon mitten shells with Austrian DACHSTEIN boiled wool mitten liners AT -40 F. and was nicely warm. Originally I had worn US Army surplus wool gloves under the Dachsteins but took them off B/C they were TOO warm!.

All events were called off that day so we Patrollers skied back to the main buildings, got on our bus and went back to the Mt. Marcy Hotel. That morning was the first time I ever saw my spit freeze in mid-air!

The next year at the ’80 Winter Olympics there was so little snow they had to make snow inn a huge pile with snowmaking machines. Front loaders loads up big sleds and the biggest POLARIS snowmobiles pulled them out wp lay it on the track, Then the track setting machines had to have many lead weights on them to push the track runners down into the icy man-made snow to set tracks.

[tkkn c]

Peter can you post a picture of the “face thing” you built?  Thanks

[Link .]

. From Mexico’s border, through U.S., Canada, Peter Vacco’s tallied 20,000 kms on his 2 feet .

. Arctic 2017 with Peter Vacco .

[Boyan B]

Mountain Hardware Absolute Zero. Used them last year in Alaska down to -30F and in the last few days in Alberta at -40F. Absolutely bulletproof but you pay the price. I normally wear L in gloves but ordered XL in this to leave plenty of room for thick liners and Grabbers. I only use the Grabbers because I do winter photography as a hobby and need to handle the camera with the liners. Every minute or two I stick my hands back in the gloves for 3-4 minutes to re-warm with the Grabbers. Two days ago I spent 3 hours at -40F doing this and my hands never went numb. Cold yes, numb no. But at the end I was in a pretty foul mood 😀

[tkkn c]

Thanks for all the ideas!  It only ended up getting to -34F.   I ended up using heavy mitts with a liner glove, and handwarmer on the left hand.   I had to take the hand warmer out, it was too warm.    For the right hand, I used a muff,  handwarmers, and a medium weight fleece glove.

[AK Granola]

Dog walks right now are 3 miles or less, with daytime highs of minus 35. He gets to run free a bit, but today he wasn’t even interested in that. Sleeping on the couch far more interesting. Temp shown was at noon today. Parka with hood, fleece neck gaiter covers face, warm hat, down mittens. Putting his booties back on when they fall off is a bare hand affair, and within a minute the fingers are wicked burning cold. But not far from home, so no matter. There’s no bad weather, only bad clothing. Okay, there’s some nasty weather too, to be real.

 

[David D]

LOL, the pic says someone would rather watch cat videos :)

Being allergic to down makes finding -40 gloves tough.  No synthetic fingered gloves work even when moving.

Thick flip top fleece mitts have worked the best so far.  Below -15C I add a liner: silk for -15 to -20C, Decathlon MT500s <-20C.  Below -20C, my fingers go numb in under 60 seconds working the screen without them and can take 20 mins or more to warm back up.  The MT500 slender fit works better than others I tried (MEC and Head running gloves) and they’re breathable.

I add the Decathlon MT500 over glove if I know the wind will be whipping.

Decathlon has some pretty decent stuff that’s very affordable.

 

[Jerry Adams]

My fingers are more sensitive to cold than they used to be

I think I let my fingers get numb, short of frost bite, a number of times.  That caused some permanent damage – they’re more sensitive now.  Or, maybe it’s just age related or whatever.

Now, if they start to get numb I put them in my pocket, or arm pit or on my stomach until they warm up.

I wonder if anyone else has the same experience.

[peter v]

yes, what he said ;

“I think I let my fingers get numb, short of frost bite, a number of times. ”

and some of that will slowly recover, but … they are damaged.

i could not find any solid documentation on this, but it’s real. travels reveal no idea on how the Inuit deal with this, or perhaps, they’ve all had it from a young age and just live with the pain, or eventually they come out the other side.

moral of the story ; don’t play games letting hands get too cold, it comes home to bite.

my left one got so bad that it would be (means it felt) screaming cold and needed immediate attention. then one day i stuck it in my mouth to check temp, and the stupid thing was just barely cooled off. so then what, ignore the warning ?? hey, what could possibly go wrong ? they also got to stinging for a few months.

ah, the joys of deep play.

v.

 

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