I’ve gone camping with various friends over the years, and watched hundreds of YouTube videos. Yet I’ve never seen anyone else employing this simple and incredibly useful bit of kit that will make everything better for you.
A pair of what I like to call “adventure gloves.”
I use the Dollar Tree brand – “Tool Bench Brown Jersey Work Gloves”. They’re so cheap you don’t care if you lose them and can stockpile pairs. Plus they have those great little rubber gripper dots.
Out in the field I use them constantly, I don’t know how I ever lived without them. Gathering and processing firewood…. Picking up hot metal cookware… sweeping away pine needles and general disgusting bits… pushing spiky tree branches away from the trail or scrambling up rocky ledges… and even though they’re just cheap cotton – they’ll keep your hands warm.
My right rear pocket is for my camping towel, the left rear pocket for my adventure gloves. The pair that’s currently in my camp box, I’ve had for at least 2 seasons already even through all the abuse. Whenever I go camping with someone who rarely or never camps, I always present them with a pair of adventure gloves.
Don’t ignore the lessons taught by so many glove-wearing badass pop culture figures. Indiana Jones…. Capt. John “Hannibal” Smith… The Lone Ranger… Darth Vader…. None of them would think about leaving the house, cabin or bacta tank without gloves!
If you do find yourself camping in truly cold weather, I recommend two other glove models that will keep you warmer than Dollar Tree gloves but are also still relatively cheap so you won’t mind them getting shredded or singed…
First are the basic U.S. Army G.I. wool gloves – which are technically “glove liners.” They’re intended to fit inside the U.S. Army leather gloves, which are made without a cloth lining, just plain leather. They’re roughly ten bucks depending on where you buy them, are as warm as you’d expect knitted wool to be, extremely durable and if you do mess them up, no big deal.
And the other gloves that are fantastic for both heavy snow conditions and for digging oysters from the mud in icy ocean water are these. They’re made for freezer workers, and will only set you back about twelve bucks. The outside is pure rubber so they’re 100% waterproof – not that “sort of waterproof unless it’s too much water” kind of thing you find with $60 REI Thinsulated type of gloves – and they have incredible, superhero-level gripping power. The inside is soft, warm synthetic fleece. You could buy 6 pairs of these for what you’d pay for some higher end “snow gloves” from a mainstream outdoor company.
# # #