Whether you are an extremely experienced skier or it’s your first day, you’re aware that when your fingers get cold then your comfort drops.
As a kid I use to swear by polypropylene glove liners because I was a Boy Scout and they wicked the moisture away from your hands while you were hiking or whatever. The problem with polypro is that it melts around fire (I found that out the hard way…) and it also does absolutely nothing to keep your hands warm other than not letting them get wet.
And while “not wet” is a great place to start when it comes to hand warmth during ski season, it’s not really the primary importance unless it’s spring and you’re digging around in the wet snow.
So over the last few years I have tried to find the right skiing glove liners to wear under my heavier gloves (my gloves of choice are the Hestra Heli gloves.
My requirements for good skiing glove liners are:
- They fit under a regular pair of gloves or mittens
- Noticeably keep my hands (which tend to get very cold on the tips because of rock climbing) warmer
- Are warm enough to wear while adjusting ski boots at the top of mountains
- Are warm enough to wear on ski touring days where my regular gloves are too heavy, but it’s too cold for bare hands.
Here are the gloves I have tried and what I recommend.
Top rated: The North Face eTip
My favorite glove to wear as a liner that also can be worn on semi-cool ski touring days are The North Face eTip gloves.
These are great at the top of the lift when adjusting my boots or when skinning on a day where it is slightly too cool for bare hands, and with the eTip technology through the thumb I don’t have to take off my gloves to open my phone and snap a picture.
Another thing I love about these gloves is that they have some texture on the hand around the thumb and index finger, which means I am able to grab and hold onto things that gloves without the texture cannot.
Price: $45
Second choice: Mountain Hardwear Power Stretch Stimulus
Our second choice is the Mountain Hardwear Power Stretch Stimulus glove. Y’all know that we love all things Mountain Hardwear here at Single Geared (check out our Ghost Whisperer review), so it is probably not a surprise that we really liked these gloves.
The only downside? No etip technology! While they say that their “conductive stretch fleece palm functions with touchscreen devices”, I was never able to get it to work.
The Power Stretch have some good things going for them:
- They are warm, warmer on their own than the The North Face eTip above;
- Plastic ribbing on the palm of the gloves;
- If the screen technology worked, they’d be awesome.
Another reason these gloves did not win is because they don’t have plastic ribbing on the fingers at all! If you are just grabbing things with your palm them they are great, but slicker items tended to slip out of my hands with these. Bummer.
Price: $39
Third choice: Garneau Wave Glove
These are technically cycling gloves meant to be worn when the weather is too cold for short-fingered gloves but too warm for full gloves. Honestly, if it’s too cold for these gloves then you should probably be skiing and not cycling.
I bought the Garneau Wave Glove because I was commuting in New York City by bike in the late fall and I needed some gloves. I’ve since worn them a few times under my main ski gloves and on some tours, but I do not like them quite as much as The North Face’s eTip glove.
The Wave do have a few things going for them:
- They are a bit bulkier than the eTip, so they are a bit warmer by themselves;
- They also have plastic grip technology on the hands across the full hand, not just the thumb and index finger like the eTip.
The challenge with the first above is that the Wave are great by themselves, which is what they were meant for. But they can be too bulky under a pair of ski gloves.
I still recommend them, and if you already have them they work as a glove liner. You could technically use the TNF eTip as cycling gloves too, but the Wave have a better grip because of the full-hand plastic.
If you are a cyclist first and a skier second, then go with these. If you’re a skier first and then a cyclist, go with the eTip.
Price: $25