Best winter gloves for 2024: farewell freezing fingers

Black Diamond’s Glissade Glove is part of its Ascent series – filling the gap as an ‘entry level’ winter glove. Entry level is subjective because the Glissade Glove is a brilliantly versatile, durable, and quite highly featured glove that we found suits a swathe of winter activities.

The Glissade Glove is constructed by employing a snug fleece liner, wrapped in Thinsulate insulation, protected by a BD.dry waterproof insert, shrouded with a Pertex Shield outer and goat leather palm. Comfortable, warm, dry, durable – the Glissade Glove fast became our favourite winter glove this season.

There are plenty of rivals to the Glissade Glove but a number of key features sealed the deal for us. One is the innovative DWR on the outer fabric. It’s called Empel, and unlike industry standard DWR treatments, it’s permanent and doesn’t use any PFCs.

Another is the longer gauntlet-style cuff. It cinches with a drawcord and makes a big difference to keeping weather and snow out. Black Diamond has allowed the Glissade Glove to keep reasonably dexterity too, achieved through not overloading it with insulation and giving the Pertex fabric four-way stretch. Use glove liners to boost warmth if you need to.

While the sizes are unisex, there are five sizes available, so you should find it easy enough to find the right one for you.

Check out the Glissade Mitt here

We’re always very wary of cheap winter gloves. There are so many on offer, with the overwhelming majority of those we’ve tested usually failing because of poor build quality. But throw enough at the wall and surely a few will stick.

The Regatta Transition III Waterproof Glove sticks. We liked this affordable, yet well-designed winter glove for its ability to offer the features that matter, and nothing else.

For example, the fingers are a little bit pre-curved, which immediately boosts dexterity. Happily, it has touchscreen compatibility too. The cuff is also just long enough to fit over a jacket sleeve, and has a simple drawcord.

We found this glove’s waterproof insert works well, and while its synthetic insulation isn’t amazing, it kept our hands reasonably warm in wintery weather. A textured PVC layer is added to the palm and fingertips, increasing durability compared to other price-conscious rivals.

Make no mistake, if you want tough, technical gloves for demanding winter hikes, save your pennies for a bit longer and get the Black Diamond Glissade Gloves. But for hillwalkers keen on a bargain, the Regatta Transition III Waterproof Glove will serve you well.

With so many stretchy, lightweight, fleecy gloves around, it’s a tough gig to come out on top, but Montane’ Fury Fleece Gloves have managed it and became our go-to for gloves of this type.

We found them very versatile, suitable for use on their own during chilly hikes, and as very warm liner gloves for bitterly cold mountain trips.

Many lightweight gloves suffer from durability issues, but we found the Montane Fury Fleece Gloves to be better than most. The material itself wears well (as long as you’re not a brute) and details like rolled fingertips are nice touches.

These gloves are highly breathable and we like that there are four sizes in the men’s and women’s versions. They’re good value too, and better yet, there’s an XT version with a silicone hand grip for grasping ice axes and walking poles.

Check out the women’s version here

All too often on high intensity hikes or trail runs, even when you’ve followed the ‘be bold, start cold’ rule, you can start to overheat. This is particularly true of gloves, which for some of our team, are one of the first things to become surplus to requirements in such a case.

But we’ve found the Adidas Terrex GTX Infinium Glove is impressively breathable and goes a long way to addressing the need to peel off outer layers of clothing.

This is thanks to the use of Gore-Tex Infinium. Most of us know Gore-Tex as a high-grade waterproof membrane but its Infinium fabric gives more weight to breathability. So, instead of waterproof it’s water and highly wind resistant. But trade-off is a big boost in breathability.

The Adidas Terrex GTX Infinium Glove fits tight, but has ample stretch for comfort. They have simple but functional palm and index finger grip, and touchscreen compatibility. Thus, it’s such an easy glove to use with a smartphone.

We always keep a lightweight pair of gloves in our pockets throughout winter, preferably ones that can also be worn underneath heavy-duty gloves on big mountain trips.

It's important to note that, while Sealskinz is known for its waterproof gloves, socks, and hats, the Acle isn’t waterproof, but the glove’s nano technology is designed to bead water, so the fabric won’t get saturated at the first sign of a shower.

The ‘S’ print you can see on the palm and fingers (right) gives good grip, and the index finger has a patch at the tip which is touchscreen compatible, so you can still use your phone without taking them off.

Overall, an excellent package. Don’t wear them in a downpour, but they’re great for hillwalking on cool winter days.

Check out the women's version here

Tough, dexterous, waterproof, and warm - these are very impressive mountain gloves but the cost reflects the impressive design.

Considered design meets top-end materials in this dependable pair of gloves for tough, technical use. The waterproofing is Gore-Tex, the insulation is PrimaLoft Gold, and the reinforcement on the palm and fingers is Pittards leather.

Different levels of insulation are used on the back and palm of the glove, ensuring that warmth doesn’t negatively affect dexterity, and the knuckle protection adds confidence when swinging an ice axe. Pre-curved for grip and with removable leashes, a soft nose wipe and single-handed cuff cinching, the Pivots have it all. 

Check out the women's version here

These have been a staple of Mountain Equipment’s range for many years and remain winners for us. The Guide Glove features a Drilite waterproof lining to keep your hands dry, and a microfleece and fibre pile lining to keep them warm.

A one-handed drawcord closure traps warmth inside the gloves, and a removable wrist tether ensures you don’t lose them. Add in the leather palm and articulated fingers for dexterity, plus nice-to-have-features like the soft nose wipe pouch, and these gloves start to look like quite the bargain.

The cuff isn't especially long but it can still cover a jacket sleeve. There’s no wrist leash either, so keep hold of them on a blustery mountain summit. But, like the Black Diamond Glissade Gloves, these are very high-performance winter gloves that offer impressive value too.

Check out the women's version here

The Arc’Teryx Venta Glove is made to be a lightweight glove with wind and rain protection. Designed for sports such as hiking, running, and skiing, the Venta is a stylish glove with Gore-Tex Infinium softshell outer fabric and a thin, OctaLoft insulating fleece inner. Water beads and rolls off the glove well, keeping the hands dry and protected.

The Venta is a well-built glove with extra TPU details on the palm to aid grip and touch-compatibility on the index finger and thumb which works well on touchscreens. At the wrist is a softer jersey knit with additional flex to cinch the glove in place, though this could be tighter to better secure the glove.

In terms of sizing, we’d appreciate smaller sizing options to be available as an XS, though true to size, was still a bit too large for our female tester (hand length and width 17cm).