Mountain Laurel Designs eVENT Rain Mitt Review

I have them aswell. Awesome pair of mitts. I actually have never used mine in rain yet, only as an overmitt in winter. They work great so far.

I often do not see waterproof mitts such as these mentioned on gear lists. I have used them in spring rains in GA and wet fall snows in New England. My hands would have become numb and useless without them. OR used to make a pair similar, but with a shorter length and tight elastic cuff. ($40 gortex). Less expensive models of silnylon are also around, and simple patterns are found for sewing your own. The thumb of the MLD pair is a somehow funny, awkward fit, but they work well….a very important piece of gear.

I've worn these mitts quite a bit, but, like Will, I've carried them for many more miles than I've actually used them. I want to point out three things:

1- I can't emphasize enough the importance of sealing the seams with SilNet. This is not easily done, but it needs to be done perfectly in order to make them waterproof. Without sealed seams, they are not waterproof, and your hands will get wet. And having cold and wet hands is miserable.

2- In addition to using them for backpacking, I run with them often in the winter in order to add warmth to my standard running gloves (DeFeet Duraglove) and to shed any precip that may be coming down. I've worn them in temps between 15 and 35.

3- When backpacking the mitts are part of my 3-season handwear system, the other part of which is usually the DeFeet Duragloves. When morning/evening temps are regularly less than 30 degrees, I prefer bringing the BPL Vapor Mitts made by RBH Designs, which are much warmer (in both dry and wet conditions) and only slightly heavier than the Mitts/Duragloves combo.

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Cold frosty morning, wet tent from previous night, poles frozen into sleeves. I tried extracting the poles with bare hands, but soon gave that up as a seriously bad idea! I was wearing both mitts and liner gloves here!

Cheers

I agree sealing the seams isn't easily done. My don't seem to have 'stuck' that well, after a wet weekend they're peeling around the thumb. I dread having to do them again.

Also I find they tend to slowly slip down my wrist, because there isn't actually anything holding them on your hand. Cinching down a rain jacket over the top helps, but over time as your hands move about they work themselves down. I think a simple bit of elastic just around the wrist (below the wide bit of the hand) would help here (in a similar position to the webbing straps on the much beefier OR Endeavor Mitts).

Ron writes "The wrist draw cord sleeve [munch]".

That seems deceptive: there is no wrist draw cord sleeve. If there were, the gloves wouldn't keep sliding off. I guess Ron is referring to the forearm draw cord, which keeps the gauntlet closed, but which does nothing to prevent the mitt from sliding up the forearm because it's, well, not at the wrist where a wrist draw cord would be.

If you always have something (e.g. hiking poles) in your hands, then the mitts stay on.

Any pointers for keeping them on? I'd think that just wrapping a rubber band outside the glove at the wrist would do it, if one of the right size could be found. But it can't.

If they had a wrist drawcord, they'd be a really great item. As it is, they frustrate me the whole way down the trail.

"I'd think that just wrapping a rubber band outside the glove at the wrist would do it, if one of the right size could be found. But it can't."

I end up wearing several standard # 64 rubber bands on my wrist when hiking. When I take the rubber band off my pot/lid, it goes on my wrist. If I have a 1/8" CCF pad, and take the rubber band off of it goes around my wrist. I often carry a couple spares there. 0.04 oz each.

Might depend on the person, but seems it would work for me. Dont have any MLD mitts to try it on though.