prudenceb

Are the two sessions the same?

And the text in website so ungrammatical, I wouldn't trust the product!

Thanks for update. For now it makes sense to get what you want where you can find it bc heaven knows we can't count on anything these days..l🙁

OK, so nitrile liners under Glacier gloves have worked pretty well for me. But yesterday I tried a new combo in my endless search for warm hands and think I finally hit a home run: nitrile gloves under Kokotat mittens. I wore them yesterday for the first time in the second half of a chilly outing. We were paddling into a headwind our whole way back, but my hands were completely toasty the whole time, despite the wind and being repeatedly splashed. The mittens shed water. I was also easily able to pull them off and put them back on even over wet nitrile gloves when I wanted to get to my camera. The mittens aren't very thick and I had a much better feel for the paddle than I do wearing Glacier gloves. Prudence

Apparently Snapdragon - makers of really good spray skirts and pogies - has closed and they are out of stock. For those of us who have liked Snapdragon products this is not good news. I found that Olympic Outdoor Center still has them available. I just ordered a new EXP Ocean Tour skirt because my old one is getting frayed. I'd suggest anyone who is consider getting a Snapdragon skirt (or other products) to look for them now because when they're gone, they're gone. Prudence

Glad you had a good day, Jim. We did too. Could you be more specific about where you launched. What state park? What harbor?

Cool!

Pink ooze is the nasty shopped up reddish seaweed that is endemic at West Beach among other places. No fun launching through it!

I don't know what you're missing, Jim, but I found wearing nitrile gloves under Glacier Gloves with cuffs tucked under neoprene drysuit cuffs kept my hands warm and dry.

I have the curved ones.

Sal! You have won the Best Suggestion prize for the day! Just back from a chilly breezy paddle. I tried your suggestion (easiest and cheapest to start with) and found tight lightweight medical nitrile gloves under Glacier Gloves made an INCREDIBLE difference! Fingertips started out cold, but warmed up fairly quickly (within a half hour). Hands stayed dry. As the morning went on, I was aware that for the first time EVER while winter paddling, my hands felt just fine! Amazing! I kept them on at lunch (although had brought extra dry gloves to switch out per other suggestions) and was a bit chilly again as we relaunched, but again, hands warmed up quickly and it was a comfortable and painless paddle the rest of the day. Beth, who was along on trip, said she had always used this thin extra layer for winter camping - she thought the liner gloves made a vapor barrier and stopped evaporative cooling. Whatever it was, at least for one day, it worked really really well! Thanks everyone for all the great suggestions. Prudence

Oh man... you're right! Damn! Why didn't I keep those?!? 😁😁😁 Hope no one notices paddle is upside down. Shhhhhh.

Thank you, everyone! These are a lot of great suggestions. I'll start with the latex/nitrile gloves and see how they work under Glacier or other gloves. The scuba gloves sound interesting. Yes, to bringing more gloves to keep switching out. Great idea to bring heated ski gloves for lunchtime hand regeneration. Nancy, I'll be interested to see how your custom pogies work! Hope more people will weigh in! And that someone will be inspired to make those heated gloves! Prudence

This is actually a serious question. I am finding the only thing standing between me and really enjoying winter paddling is my hands, which I am having real problems keeping warm. At the end of the day, my hands are so cold I need someone to unclip my pfd...and just turning the key in the car ignition requires two hands. I've recently spoken to someone who actually got frostbitten hands paddling. That hasn't happened to me (yet), but I worry. I feel as though I've tried everything: Gloves - I have about a million pairs of different size and weights of Glacier Gloves - as well as NRS and other brands. I find that neoprene gloves always leak, and then my fingers end up feeling as though they're sausages encased in a cold wrapping. I tried a pair of really cheap waterproof gloves not meant for paddling, and found that with temps in the 40s and no wind, they almost did the trick. Stayed dry inside, but once water seeped in from the cuffs (which I tried to prevent by tucking cuffs under the outer layer of the wrists of my drysuit - not under the gasket of course!) it was game over. Plus, they're so cheap I doubt they'll last. Plus, can't count on 40 degree temps and no wind in the winter. Pogies - I have four different sets of pogies: Kokotat lightweight ones, Snapdragon heavy ones, NRS heavy but shorter ones (good for paddling in Iceland and Greenland when air temp was moderate-ish, but water very very cold), and Stohlquist light-ish weight ones (great for conditions similar to the NRS ones). Joe Berkovitz says he really likes the Kokotat heavier neoprene ones - which I haven't tried. Some people say that just having pogies keeps their hands warm enough. I have not found that to be the case when the temps go down into the 30's and below and the water is very cold. I ended up putting the drip rings back on my Werner paddle in the hopes that less water would seep into the pogies. Jury is still out on that. Pogies and Gloves - I've tried various combos. Problem is that pogies are really not big enough to fit gloves underneath. I tried this on recent paddle and found that while initially my hands stayed a bit warm, I almost felt as though I was wearing a hand/wrist cast made out of gloves and pogies - I had little control of paddle and in rough conditions, worried that paddle blade would go into the water at wrong angle and I could end up flipping the boat. Not good. So...lighter gloves? Again, the problem is that when gloves get wet, my fingers are just encased in freezing cold sausage casing. Mittens - this might be the answer, but jury still out and there is a significant problem I'll get to in a second. My first pair - NRS size mediums - are impossible to get on with wet hands. This is a problem if hands get wet at launch while you're attaching spray skirt or whatever. I have on order Kokotat size large mitts. We'll see if they work. BUT...on of the things I really enjoy in paddling is taking photographs, and it is impossible to manipulate a camera wearing gloves. (Is a Go Pro the answer here?) Hand warmers - I've wondered whether I might put an activated hand warmer into something I could wear around my neck and hold on to periodically to warm up hands that are cold wearing any of above. Has anyone tried this? If so, what exactly have you done to encase the hand warmer. Just being able to take one out at lunch isn't sufficient, need access throughout the day. Can one tuck one into a pogie? Of course, THE ANSWER is HEATED GLOVES! They make 'em for skiers, but it's the [email protected]#$% water that I guess complicates the matter for a paddling glove. Or a HEATED PADDLE. It seems that theoretically it should be possible to make. We have all these engineering types who like to paddle. Get on it! But in the meantime...I'm wondering whether anyone has suggestions (other than not winter paddling) that are not listed above that I might try. I think that if my hands could stay completely dry, that would be a good start. Any brands of paddling gloves to recommend? Any pogies big enough to easily fit gloved hands into? Any lightweight waterproof gloves? One non-paddling friend suggested silk glove liners, which she found really helped XC skiing. But if they get wet... So. Thanks for any help you can offer. And feel free to head down to the basement workshop to start on a prototype for heated gloves. I really think they're the answer, but they don't exist as far as I know. If they can send someone to the moon...or Mars for heavens sake - can't "they" invent something to help me keep my hands warm enough for all-through-the-winter paddling? Prudence

Two of the boats were mine! Easy to identify which!