Will Gadd: Keeping your hands warm, Part 1
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photo: Will Gadd collection
Will Gadd, Canadian ice climbing expert, knows a few things about staying warm. This article is from a series of posts he made on Instagram. I’m sharing it here with Will’s permission.
Connect with Will on his website and Instagram, @realwillgadd
How to have warm hands - Gloves
Cold hands suck the fun out of ice climbing. It’s a huge topic, and there is no “one” solution. I’ll come at the problem from a few different angles, hopefully one or two resonate with you.
Tip 1: Don’t wear big gloves. Big gloves are for belaying only, they will make your hands cold if worn for activity. Sounds backwards, you need big gloves to stay warm, right? Nah. What happens with big gloves is that your hands will sweat in them as you move. Once the interior of your big gloves has even a tiny film of water in them you are doomed to have cold hands.
To test this theory, stick your hands outside while dry. Now do the same thing with wet hands. The moisture on your hands makes it feel way, way colder, and that’s what happens when you have even slightly wet fingers: you get cold hands unless you’re operating at very, very high heart rates. Even then you may be sweating and have frozen hands. Only use big gloves when you are standing around and NOT sweating.
Big gloves also don’t dry fast if there’s a tiny sheen of sweat on your hands, because there isn’t a big enough temperature gradient to drive the moisture up through the fabric to the outside. So they get wet, and stay wet inside, and you are miserable.
Big gloves also require more force to constrict around your ice tools, which means you’re squeezing harder, which means less blood flow, which means cold hands . . .
So, for moving you need “disposable” gloves as your hands will sweat in even thin gloves. That’s OK if you’re Nordic skiing and giving it, but for climbing we’re going to stop moving. At that point a slightly damp thin glove has served its purpose, and is tossed into the bottom of the pack, dry your hands, belay gloves on . . . I bring up to one pair of gloves per pitch if I think it’s going to be wet.
If it’s very cold and you still have to use your hands, try mitts and a very thin liner glove for standing around. Having all your fingers together helps them stay warm, and the thin layer also really helps them stay warm in the brief intervals you bring them out. But thick gloves don’t work as well because you end up taking them off to do anything. Misery sucks.
Get flexible gloves that aren’t tight. A little larger is better if they are flexible, but stiff and tight will make you hang on too tight and constrict circulation, which equals total misery. This is why heated gloves generally don’t work too well; too stiff to climb or easily open carabiners.
How to have warm hands: Layering is BS.
I have watched kids play bare-handed, physical outdoor games at -20, not because they’re Canadian but because that’s how our bodies work: If your body temperature is warm enough then your hands will be too, pretty much regardless of gloves or air temperature. What really matters is the temperature inside your body.
When that drops, your body gives up on keeping your hands warm and focuses on your core. Less blood goes through your hands. You have to use this knowledge to balance your clothing, your furnace (your muscles etc.) and the temperature. If any one of these three systems is out of whack then you will suffer cold hands or worse relatively soon. How to balance them? Dress for where you’ll be, not where you are. If you’re skiing and hot you’ll only get hotter. Strip down.
Layering is nonsense, most of the time we are either moving or standing, not adjusting a thin layer while prancing along. If moving and heating up, strip down until you are warm to slightly cool but no longer sweating (if possible). When you stop put on enough clothes that you can stand there comfortably for as long as you need to plus 20 minutes or so.
If you stop moving and wait to feel cold before putting on clothes you’ve missed the temperature cues and will suffer cold hands. I routinely belay in my down pants and huge down jacket. Together they weigh very little, but I could almost bivy in them if I had to, even in -20. My hands will be warm if my gloves are dry (see last post). Before I start climbing again I’ll strip down to my moving layer, switch to smaller dry gloves, and be a tad chilly (but my core isn’t yet dropping so my hands are still warm) before moving again.
With minor variations, I have a “moving” outfit, and a “standing” outfit. That’s it.
Layers are for onions and fashion victims, no one can calibrate their heat output that precisely. I have never see anyone de-layer on the fly other than adventure racers, and that’s another topic.
So, strip early, strip lots, dress early and more than you think you need.
How to have warm hands - General Tips
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