America’s Best Backpacking and Outdoor Adventures
By Michael Lanza
Looking for winter gloves that keep your hands warm and dry and are made to last for years? As a professional gear reviewer who gets cold hands easily and spends many days outside in winter, from downhill, backcountry, and Nordic skiing to trail running, biking around town, and working outside, I’ve used many types of gloves and learned a lot over the years about how to select the right gloves for a variety of uses.
By Michael Lanza
Let’s start with two truths about mittens: 1. We know they’re warmer than gloves. 2. We often choose gloves over mittens, anyway, for some reasons that make sense and some reasons that, well, don’t make much sense. Whether you need them for resort skiing or snowboarding, hiking, walking, snowshoeing, bike commuting, trail running, clearing snow, or something else, this review covers the best mittens for a wide range of temperatures and cold-weather activities.
By Michael Lanza
There’s one thing we can confidently say about the clothing layers we use in winter: We get our money’s worth out of them. While a rain shell or puffy jacket may rarely come out of our pack on a summer hike or climb, we almost invariably wear every article of clothing we carry when Nordic, downhill, or backcountry skiing, snowshoeing, snowboarding, trail running, or climbing in winter. That’s money spent wisely to make us more comfortable and safer.
Ultralight Wind Shell
Outdoor Research Shadow Wind Hoodie
$129, 5.8 oz./164.4g (men’s medium)
Sizes: men’s S-XXL, women’s XS-XXL
outdoorresearch.com
We ask a lot of ultralight wind shells, these wispy jackets that often weigh no more (and sometimes less) than your hiking shorts. We want them to breathe well when we’re hiking or running uphill while, of course, blocking the wind effectively—and not feel like a kitchen trash bag with sleeves and a hood. On trail runs, dayhikes, and a backpacking trip from the desert Southwest in spring to the mountains of Southwest Idaho, in a wide range of fall and spring weather that challenges any outer layer to keep you comfortable, I found that OR’s Shadow Wind Hoodie did just that, quite well.
Water-Resistant Down Jacket
Outdoor Research Helium Down Hoodie
$299, 15.4 oz./437g (men’s medium)
Sizes: men’s S-3XL, women’s XS-XL, plus sizes 1X-4X
backcountry.com
The wind blew strong and steady and the temperature sat just several ticks above freezing on our mornings and evenings backpacking the three-day loop through Owl and Fish canyons in southern Utah in early May. I was happy to have not brought an ultralight insulated jacket on that trip—as I often do in spring in the Southwest—because my Outdoor Research Helium Down Hoodie had the heft to keep me warm in that below-freezing wind chill. And it delivers rare protection from wet weather—at a price lower than most high-quality down jackets.