Outdoor Research Carbinde (left) & Black Diamond Crew.
I used to have hands for which gloves were often a formality. They were hot hands, with capillary blood swirling through the subcutaneous like equatorial ocean currents, dumping heat in such quantities I could ice climb bare-handed. No more. The effects of age and abuse have rendered my manos average — perhaps less than average. Consequently, it was time to step up my glove game — to begin using something thick and real.
I narrowed down my choices to two products: Black Diamond’s serious looking Crew Pro-Series, and the Outdoor Research subtly appointed grey-on-grey Carbide Sensor. I picked these gloves simply based on the reputability of the makers and my familiarity with their brands. Thus, know this isn’t a broad overview of the glovely ecosystem, but rather a biased effort to narrow my choice from two to one. Please share your favorites in the comments.
Black Diamond Crew Glove
Anyone who’s anybody in gloves knows the BD Guide, that storied Bismark that’s seen everyone from core alpinists to ski patrolers apply their hands to the frigid yonder. The Crew is essentially a Guide without the removable liner. According to BD, the guide is “warmer,” but I doubt that’s the case to any significant degree.
The Crew’s thick, natural colored leather is your choice for the more utilitarian applications.
Like the Guide, the Crew is thick, beefy, about as bulky as a glove can be. Thickness and bulk equal warmth, simple as that. As for the none-removable liner, that’s a detriment for multiple back-to-back days of heavy use, but avoids loss of the liner, and saves you from tangles while taking the gloves off and putting them back on. I look at it this way: For expedition use, separate liners are best. If I’m going home every day to a warm, glove drying environment, fixed liner is better.
Crew features
– Stretch fabric over the first and third knuckle, and thick leather.
– The liner is 100 gram fleece on the palm and 170 gram on the hand back.
– In my opinion, the exterior hand-back of the Crew is over-designed. I’m not sure if the elaborate stitching and exposed fabric makes them any more dexterous than using high-quality leather, but they look good and they function fine.
– The Crew is claimed to use “Gore Plus Warm” GORE-TEX technology. I got a laugh out of that. After spending ten minutes digging through over-designed websites I never did learn what Plus Warm really was, other than it’s supposed to be warmer than other forms of GORE-TEX. Reading between the lines, I concluded it’s perhaps nothing more than a slightly less breathable membrain than others. Gore, if you don’t like my take, redesign your website so it actually tells me something.
– Fit of the Crew is about what I expect from a bulky, warm glove. Not particularly dexterous, improving over time with break-in. Note the lack of an adjustable wrist band. I’m not sure where I’m at with that. The Crew can’t be loosened up for easy on-off, but I like the simplicity.
Outdoor Research Carbide Sensor Glove
The OR Carbide Sensor glove accomplishes an impressive combination of warmth and dexterity by virtue of soft, compressable 130 gram insulation in the palm and 200 gram at the back, combined with thin yet full-coverage leather and pre-curved fingers.
Carbide features
– I appreciated the adjustable elastic wrist strip, which I left loose most of the time for easy on-off, and cinched down to provide a feeling of snug dexterity.
– In testing, I found the warmth of the Carbide to match that of the Crew. Where the two offerings differ is in durability. The natural surface leather of the Crew does a good job of disguising wear, while the grey dyed leather of the Carbide shows small nicks that dig into the lighter colored leather under the surface. That’s not a deal breaker, but I’d say for this reason the Crew is a better multi-purpose work glove, while the Carbide lends itself to less abusive endeavors. It’s strengths are light-weight and dexterity.
– The Carbide includes a GORE-TEX layer, which performed just as well as the Crew’s “Gore Plus Warm” in my immersion and cold tests.
More
Both gloves include removable wrist-dangle straps. The Crew gauntlet cones out 4 more centimetres then that of the Carbide — an important consideration if you’ll be wearing a thick sleeved parka. The Carbide leather is factory water-repellent treated. The Crew may be treated as well, but comes with a packet of Nikwax leather treatment I tested and found to be effective.
ANSI approved H2o transference resistance metrology. Result: Equal and excellent.
Conclusions
The lighter weight (by 24 grams) and flexible Carbide is the more dexterous of the two — while the Crew is more durable. After testing by holding an aluminum airbag gas cylinder chilled to negative five degrees farenheit, I give the Crew the edge on warmth — yet the Crew is not significantly warmer than the Carbide. It seemed the under-finger insulation of the Crew was slightly denser than that of the Carbide, resulting in better insulation as I grasped my cold-soaked test metal.
It bears repeating that both gloves have fixed liners. If you’re doing multi-day sojourns in full conditions, consider a glove with removable liner for easier drying, and acceptance of optional spare liners. The Carbide “Sensor” index fingertip will push pixels on your smartscreen, but with little precision.
In all, I’m torn between the two choices, though I swing towards the Carbide simply because of its superior dexterity. Nonetheless, if I’m snowmobiling, working around our cabin, or shoveling snow and fooling with trailer hitches, I’d sport the Crew.
Weights:
BD 148 grams (wet after leather treatment, 184, 36 grams water)
OR 124 grams (wet 139, 15 grams water)
WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou (Louis Dawson) has a 50+ years career in climbing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski down all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest mountain.
18 comments
I can’t go past the Hestra Army Leather Guide GTX (gortex). They might be called something else now but they are the shizzle. You can’t kill them, they’re warm but not too warm and they breath extremely well which is the big plus for me.
Having sewn a few gloves, and wearing many, from the top vendors over the years/ BD gets a strong nod for sure. I’ll encourage your readers to not pass over the recent Arc’ gloves and mitts of recent years. Some of the best patterning and construction this micro industry has been privileged to. When gloves are designed and patterned by folks who use them regularly, and are artists/ craftsman, good things can happen. (Even better when the factory-partner respects that, and brings their deep Caring knowledge to the manufacturing. ) If the sales and marketing people will bring them to us without compromise its a win! (Except maybe for your wallet).
With a birth year similar to this blogs’ founder, my ski hands prefer mitts now (and the Arc’ folks have it here). Tho when handling the trailers and other cold metal hardware, a durable thick skinned glove becomes the priority. Not elegant patterning and a high price tag. These gloves are consumables.
Attend to your (ski) edges, and your precious ski gloves will last a fair bit longer too.
Kinko lined pigskin gloves. Stripped canvas on the back, and knit wrist cuff. Less that $24.00. I usually skin and ski with those, in the woods, or resort ski later in season.
For really cold weather, Black Diamond Mercury Mitt. Great thing about a mitt, is you can work with a bare hand when you need dexterity, say camera work for a few seconds. Plunge your hand back into the mitt and your hand (usually) warms up quickly.
Any wider, larger mitt than the Mercury and you lose too much dexterity.
Have you checked out Free The Powder gloves? Hands down, the best I’ve ever found.
https://www.freethepowder.com/collections/gloves
I too have been using FTP gloves this season and like them. Warm and well-made. Dexterity improved a lot with break-in. Liners are removable but cause no problems for that. Normally I just hang them on my pack, and they dry overnight, ready for use the next day. Free The Powder’s corporate emblem is an ermine. If you enjoy cute little animals, the ermine is your animal. Ermine are the reason I ski.
I fall in the camp of “Gloves are Consumables.” This means I am reluctant to spend more than $50 on a pair of gloves, but rarely pass by the glove rack of hardware, feed store, or ski shop without picking up a pair priced around $30 or less. Newest favorites (and currently MIA) are a pair of Wells Lamont Snow HydraHyde leather gloves I picked up on my last visit to Cripple Creek BC. They seem to have a slight edge in both warmth, and dexterity over my classic Kincos (canvas back / leather palm / open cuff). The full pigskin leather Kinco gloves I purchased my first season as liftie were far & away the coldest gloves I ever put my hands in. Couldn’t even make it down one lift-assisted run without my hands turning into ice cubes.
Around 20 years ago I wasted a lot of winter days installing and repairing microwave radio links on rime iced mountaintops in this part of Idaho. The perfect test of gloves and mitts. A windy -20C with the need to connect tiny nuts and bolts, up 30M while tethered to a tower? My choice was, from inside out, nitrile dipped polyester work gloves, $5 a pair, then genuine Dachstein boiled wool mitts, $40?, then OR Mitten shells that included a light Thinsulate lining, $?? but not much. Mitts on leaches so I could let them hang while working with nuts and bolts. Plus hand warmer packets of course.
Long time listener, first time caller – love the site and appreciate all the information.
I don’t get the whole Kinco/Wells Lamont/etc. cheap ski glove thing. Sure I can appreciate that everybody has a budget, but c’mon, unless your whole kit is from a thrift store or you just want to dirt bag it, that’s fine, but good money spent in great techie gloves is where it’s at, in my opinion.
I don’t want to have to mess with treating my stuff with beeswax waterproofing, I don’t want to have snow get up my wrist in either direction when I fall, I just want a warm, waterproof, breathable glove with a gauntlet to keep heat in, and snow out. Black Diamond makes some seriously nice, well-fitting gloves that have never let me down. I hear great things about Hestra too. I think OR makes great stuff, but I for me, BD tends to have a more precise fit.
If I’m roofing, or hooking up trailers or just doing work, I get the cheap gloves, otherwise no thanks for athletic endeavors.
I got BD crew for about 5 yrs now, IME the quality of the crew is very apparent the type of leather, the triple stitch , how its wearing a very nice glove, I can tell its going to last, an app of snow seal and they come up a nice deep rich orange color …recomended
I don’t get the Kinco love, I want a gauntlet for skiing and IME work gloves just arent warm enough for me but YMMV
I got the BD Guide gloves a year ago, thinking they would be good replacements for my old Montbell gauntlet gloves, which had kept me warm on Denali, Aconcagua, and many ski trips. Unfortunately my fingers are cold most days in the Guide gloves; they are nowhere nearly as warm or as flexible as the old Monbell gloves. My fingers are warm in the Guide gloves on warm sunny days, but they start getting cold anytime it gets around freezing. Even though I got the largest Guide gloves, they fit snugger than my old ones, and I wonder if that may be part of the problem. I’ve decided to look into mitts or lobster style for next year.
Pretty pleased with my Norrona Lofoten Thermo200 GTX gloves.
Goat leather gauntlet gloves with Gore-tex liner and lots of insulation. Nice wrist tether strap but not as nice as Hestra wrist tether.
Sticking your gloves under the tap is in no way a review. Anyhow, obviously BD over OR.
I’m sure that everyone knows that wearing surgical gloves as the initial layer increases the warmth of any glove by 20-30%? Tested by winter construction work at J hoe.The vapor barrier effect means that your hands will often be sweating at – zero temperatures but all that moisture stays in the latex glove instead of dampening and reducing the insulation effectiveness in the outer glove. And a box at the local lumber or auto supply store will set you back all of $15. The bonus is that you can remove your primary glove for intricate work and still have a little bit of useful warmth. If you are fixing your car or snowmobile just throw them away when they get greasy. At the cost of pennies.
You may find the price of surgical gloves is significantly higher for the next couple of years given the current world situation!
Don’t buy sterile surgical gloves– common latex gloves are similar without the medical price tag.
vinal gloves like the sandwich artiste at your local fast food work just fine for vapor barrier and only 7$ for 100. I think these ski gloves probaly all get made in the same factory cuz I also got a pair of BD gloves that look much like the OR in this compro, IME that suede like patch will crack and lose its suede cover after a few seasons but like any glove issue its all fixable with aquaseal/ shoogoo
I’ll definitely sing the praises of the Free The Powder SX and RX gloves. My hands tend to sweat a bit and are sometimes difficult to keep warm. I’ve got a pair of BD Mercurys that I bought thinking I would love for days when my hands feel chilly in gloves, but I just haven’t had a good experience with them. My hands sweat in them even when they’re cold, and even in a warm house I find the mercury liners dry slowly. Not so with the FTP gloves. They are very breathable and dry extremely easily: I’m admittedly new to the backcountry, and during an AIARE course I pulled off my gloves at the beginning of a practice search and dragged them through the snow on their wrist leashes while crawling around. I realized it was a bad move when I went to warm my now cold and damp hands and found my gloves filled with snow, but I shook them out and put them on anyway. They were dry next to skin in under ten minutes. They benefit from some use and breaking in, but I doubt there are any gloves that are significantly more dexterous for the same level of warmth. Plus they are $80, so a great deal for gloves of their caliber. Given how well the they manage moisture even with some significant insulation, I find my hands are very nearly as warm in my FTP gloves as they are in my mercury mittens.
My last Hestra Falt Guides lasted 10 years of patrolling a couple nights a week and random days here and there (only a few holes so I still use them on warm days), so who cares that they’re $$$. Not super warm but great for taking on and off often with no mucking about with cuffs. Bought the same to replace them.
Hestra Army Leather under-cuff for freeskiing are less warm, but damn, do they fit like gloves. They feel so good that I suck up the coldness more than I would otherwise. Agreed on the idiot-strings, they’re the best.
BD that are similar to the Crew (maybe just an older model, a bit more leather on the back) are colder than I was hoping.
My down mitts are way too warm until it’s less than -20C, and I hate wearing them due to lack of dexterity.
I’ve never been able to notice any difference between with/without Gore-Tex in gloves (or shoes for that matter), they don’t breathe anyway (maybe due to lack of enough insulation space, or my hands/feet are too cold to get the convection going?), and still get wet from the outside.
Crazy Horse, as mentioned, I’m a patroller, so I have a good supply of nitrile gloves available, how did it never occur to me to use them as liners on a regular basis? I’ll try tomorrow night!
Ric, I hear good things about trigger mitts (index finger alone), and Hestra makes a bunch.
A few friends that like the Kinco, can’t argue with the price, if you’re the sort to leave them on top of your car and drive away then cheap is good.
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