The 4 Best Winter Gloves of 2022
These toasty digit-savers will keep you warm and dry in any conditions.
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Most Breathable Gloves: Helly Hansen Odin Windproof Liner
- Price: $70
- Weight: 8.8 oz.
- Best for: A windy day on cross-country skis
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Moving fast on the trail or skin track is one of the joys of winter, but it’s usually sweaty work, and trying to find a glove that strikes a balance between protection and ventilation can be a challenge. The Odin Windproof Liner is a happy medium, dumping heat like a liner but blocking the wind from numbing our digits on high-tempo cross-country ski sessions at Lincoln, Nebraska’s Pioneers Park when temperatures dipped into the low 20s. (Much below that and we reached for heavier outer gloves; the Odin can pull double-duty as a true liner.) “I appreciated the touch screen-compatible index finger and the rubberized grips on the palm and fingers, which stopped me from fumbling my phone in deep snow,” our tester says. The polyester and elastane softshell fabric shed moisture well enough to keep our hands dry on an hour-long ski through heavy snow.
Best All-Around Mittens: Gordini Front Line GTX Mitt
- Price: $120 (mitt), $50 (liner)
- Weight: 8.8 oz.
- Best for: Pinballing temps
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Cold temps demand serious protection, but no one wants to feel like they’re skiing with pillows on their hands. Enter the Front Line, a three-in-one mitten system that kept our hands toasty and dry thanks to PrimaLoft Gold insulation in a breathable, relatively lightweight package. The Front Line’s polyester shell (3 percent elastane lends a slight stretch) and Gore-Tex liner kept sloppy spring snow out while we Nordic skied near Fairbanks, Alaska. When the weather crept up to the mid-30s, our tester ditched the shell and took the moisture-wicking, knit polyester inner mitt running and biking, where it dumped sweat without turning soggy. No matter what she threw at it, the outer shell didn’t show a scratch thanks to the Kevlar-blend palm and finger caps. Our tester was comfortable in the Front Line down to about 0°F; below that, she says, she would have preferred something a little warmer.
Most Eco-Friendly Gloves: The North Face Lhotse Alpine Glove
- Price: $80
- Weight: 4.6 oz.
- Best for: Setting up camp in wet snow
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Gloves need to be replaced more often than almost any other winter gear, which multiplies their environmental impact. So, we appreciate this functional pair from The North Face, which incorporates post-consumer recycled materials without sacrificing performance. The Lhotse Alpine enjoys an exceptional warmth-to-weight ratio, thanks to dual layers (80-gram on the palm and 120-gram on the back of the hand) of 85 percent post-consumer recycled synthetic insulation. (The outer shell is made from recycled polyester and nylon.) The result is a glove that isn’t too cumbersome or puffy, but still kept our tester’s hands warm while she got towed behind a snowmobile. “It protected my fingers despite the wind chill, and I didn’t second-guess the grip on my ski poles,” she says. Back in camp, the Futurelight waterproof/breathable membrane and PFC-free DWR-coated goat leather palm let her build a snow kitchen without wetting out the glove.
Best Gloves for Ski Mountaineering: Black Diamond Cirque
- Price: $80
- Weight: 3.5 oz.
- Best for: High-altitude dexterity
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For those all-day, big mountain missions where you feel like you never stop moving, the two-in-one Cirque is your fast-and-light friend. A stretchy polyester back helps bleed heat like a liner, while a goatskin palm shrugs off wear and tear from poles, crampons, and ropes. When the temps drop or the wind picks up, a Pertex overmitt insulated with 40 grams of PrimaLoft Gold Cross Core stored in the wrist pulls over the fingers to add a little bit of extra warmth, a feature one tester appreciated on ski tours to Colorado’s Polar Star Inn and Seipel Hut when the temperatures pinballed between 20°F and 40°F. “I put the mitten flap on a few times and was surprised at how much extra warmth that provided,” he said. Though ultralight and ultrapackable, the Cirque seals out most moisture thanks to a PFC-free DWR. Downside: The mitt storage pouch on the wrist feels a bit bulky and awkward.
