Mittens: L, or XL?

I'm shopping for some well insulated winter mittens. I tried some of REI's on, at the local store. The Large's fit well and I think would leave room for light- or maybe even medium-weight gloves or mittens inside. But Extra-Large's are available too, and they provide a lot of room inside.

Any thoughts on which would be better? The XLs would be a bit clumsier, maybe, but might the extra space inside be worth it?

werdigo49 said:

I'm shopping for some well insulated winter mittens. I tried some of REI's on, at the local store. The Large's fit well and I think would leave room for light- or maybe even medium-weight gloves or mittens inside. But Extra-Large's are available too, and they provide a lot of room inside.

Any thoughts on which would be better? The XLs would be a bit clumsier, maybe, but might the extra space inside be worth it?

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I'd go for the XL myself. You never know how many pairs of gloves you might have on!

But before you buy, make sure you can exchange them.

I would be careful - a mistake I made for a full season and a half was to have liners inside my mountaineering gloves. They weren't too tight at all - at least thats what I thought and my hands and fingers would get cold on anything below 10 degrees. I was on a guided climb in huntington ravine one day (about 0 degrees and windy) and the guide was like - take off your liner gloves. And - it was magic - my hands were never cold again . Don't always assume more layers means warmth on the hands and feet. Circualtion is the key. In this case, the more space and less restriction worked wonders. The mountaineering glove is an EMS primaloft gore-tex combo circa 2000-1. still works great.

so - maybe the L without a liner might be best?? - on real cold days, toss a hand warmer in there.

just a though about what works for me.

I have a pair of XL double fleece mittens with the OR gore shells. I like the XL because I can have the mittens be double duty. On cold winter hikes I put my hot nalgene inside of the mitten instead of carrying another bottle cozy. The mitten works just as well as the cozy (so long as it is sufficiently buried in the pack). Plus if you end up needing your mittens you get them pre-heated.

I almost always wear a liner glove-the OR PS150, either alone or in a big outer glove. One thing I learned is you can always stuff a small hand in a big glove, but not the other way around. If in doubt, I'd go for the bigger glove. Clumsy,maybe, warmer, most likely.

Thanks for the suggestions! By the time I got to the REI store for its winter sale (it started last Friday, and I didn't receive the mailer until Monday), all of the L and XL's were gone... but the salesperson suggested with web site, and I was able to get some XL's there (no L's were available there either).

So it's XL's! They'll arrive at the local store (no shipping charge), at the sale price, in about another week.