The Best Ski Mittens

Buying Guide

Keeping your hands warm and dry is an essential factor in making sure your time out on the slopes is enjoyable. When you are planning a ski trip, you are likely going to find yourself going somewhere cold where there is snow on the ground. Your fingers are thin and lack any useful insulation so you will need to help them out by putting on a nice warm pair of mittens so they can stay toasty and let you focus your thoughts on other things like the snow and the actual act of skiing.

Unlike gloves, where each finger is separated from each other, a sure way to lower the efficiency of keeping them warm, a mitten lets all your fingers share one common space and help keep each other warm. This creates the most ideal circumstance for warm hands when you are faced with being outside in cold weather and at generally high speeds.

Ski mittens are meant to do two main things: keep your fingers and hands warm and keep your fingers and hands dry. These two factors work together, as wet hands or wet insulation won’t be as warm to you. To keep your hands warm and dry, many mittens offer cinching wrists that allow you to physically tighten the end of your mitten to defend against intruding snow. The cuff of the mitten can go under or over your sleeve, depending on the design style, and it adds to the defense of not allowing snow into your warm and dry wrist or hand. This feature is critical when you’re skiing or snowboarding as you may very well find yourself in fresh powdery snow that will work its way into every crack and crevice possible.

The materials of a glove are a big part of how durable they are. A highly-crafted mitten can have thin insulation that is still highly effective and it will often have a rugged outer material that will last through a lot of wear and tear. Cheaper mittens are equally as warm, but they often have thicker insulation layers to achieve this warmth while giving you a little bit less dexterity.

• Make sure the mittens fit your hand well. If the mittens are too large, you’ll have a really hard time using your hands for much beyond holding your ski poles.
• There are more colors than just black and adding some flair to your ski outfit with fun mittens is definitely possible if you just look through the color options on most of the offerings.
• Mittens need to be taken off if you want to use your fingers for things like using your phone. Find a pair with straps that attach the mittens directly to your wrists or coat so you can take them off without having them fall to the ground while you’re on a chair lift.