Winter Gloves Review: Mountain Equipment Couloir Glove

Being as the snow actually appears to have come early for us this year I thought it might be the opportune time to do a few glove reviews. Before I jump into this a bit of disclaimer: warmth is a very personal thing with any of these kinds of gloves either you get very cold hands and thats why you want them or you are doing more serious activities, in this case for me it’s been winter mountaineering and walking. EVERYBODY feels the cold differently, everybody has different circulation so you need to bear in mind when buying for warmth, nobody can tell you 100 percent if something is warm enough for you because they aren’t you. Thats down to you to find out, and this said if you are reading this I get slightly cold hands, and I wouldn’t say my circulation is bad so if you are the same then this review may be helpful to you.

These are currently my go- to glove for winter walking and mountaineering, supremely comfortable and very warm in fact I’ve trusted these in -15 degree windchill so far and found them to be excellent. Not only are they very warm but also comfortable, due to the fibre pile lining on the back of the hand and the fleece lining on the palm but also very durable due to the goatskin leather palm and back of hand.

These gloves feature a GORE-TEX liner which means they are waterproof and breathable, the goat skin leather palm is water resistant and it gives me really good grip on my ice axe (may or not be relevant but I use the DMM Raptor). They also a a suede nose wipe on the back of the thumb which grim as it is we all know we get a runny nose on the mountain, and Kleenex is a impossibility when you are hanging off the side of a mountain. They’ve added elastic glove retainers so if you take off your glove or it comes off you aren’t going to lose it and I’m terrible for losing gloves and the gloves have a draw cord closure around the wrist which stops the snow getting in, and what’s more they’ve designed it to be single handed which is very useful. Another handy feature which is pretty common on most high end gloves is the karabiner carry loops (red band) which is useful to keep your gloves together with.

In short I love this product, it’s very well designed and these feel good to put on and reassuringly tough, I’d happily recommend them to anyone. I’ve tested these up in the Cairngorms in winter and they perform excellently and for that reason I’m giving them the first 10 I’ve given for a piece of gear. With extended use the goatskin leather does eventually get saturated with water and because of this it’s a wise idea to pick up some leather conditioner to keep them water resistant and to stop them drying out and cracking.

Rating: 10/10

Price: Ranging from £70 to £100 depending on where you shop.

Uses: Hiking, winter walking, winter mountaineering, ski