The 16 Best Ski Gloves & Mittens of 2023 | Heated & Warm

The Guide Glove is Black Diamond’s professional standard model. After a short break-in period, they step into gold standard territory for guides, instructors and patrollers–balancing extreme warmth with practical dexterity.

The freedom to accomplish fine motor tasks without unnecessary exposure is an absolute necessity for pros, and quite the luxury for recreational skiers looking for the best they can buy.

While there’s some considerable breaking needed to work out the stiffness, the payoff in protection and durability makes these beasts more than worth the price in the long run. Still, some limitations to dexterity are the trade-off you need to accept.

Hestra is a workhorse ski glove brand. The Army Leather Extreme is a warm mitt that will survive arctic fallout while providing decent dexterity to the skier.

This is a premium ski mitt, intended for cold conditions and used often. Be prepared to pay for this and be prepared to be satisfied too.

Burton Gore-Tex gloves are going to appeal to spring skiing. The waterproofing and dexterity–along with the brand name–will attract snowboarders.

As far as the price and performance of these–in particular, their durability–they compare well to the North Face Apex. Fewer features and a lower price tag make these stand out.

Kinco gloves are the humble solution to keeping the budget down without making too much of a compromise. With a little work, the 1927KW can function as a ski glove for a few seasons without losing its worth (ie. keeping your hands dry and warm).

This is the answer to sometime-skiers and snowboarders struggling to get kitted out with gear designed for serial slope stars weary of withdrawal from the mountain.

REI’s in-house line of outdoor products offers budget-conscious recreators a middle ground between industry leaders and the bare minimum. Over the years, they’ve upped the quality of their products to the point of competing with premium brands- their First Chair series of ski gear is a prime example.

This Gore-Tex glove garnered attention for its extensive feature set and reasonable price point.

The First Chair lineup is a good enough option at a reasonable price for most entry level skiers and snowboarders. While it falls behind name brand alternatives in aspects like durability and detail polish. They are, however, good enough for most casual resort riders and widely available from your favorite big box outdoor retailer.

The Fall Line is a longtime favorite for industry and technical skiers who value durability and dexterity over warmth. I’ve traditionally associated Hestra with the warmest ski gloves on the market. The Fall Line is a departure, but retains adequate warmth in all but the coldest weather while offering compelling compromises in other areas.

These hard-working and durable gloves allow the necessary mobility for complicated tasks over multiple seasons of heavy use. Design considerations like baffled knuckles and palm padding outseams facilitate wiggling fingers and keeping hold of slippery slopeside objects.

This spring skiing performer, Apex eTip Gloves from the North Face, are softshell options that provide comfort and usability for uphilling too.

With touchscreen finger tips, these reasonably inexpensive gloves will also be favorites for some working their phones on the chairlift as well as scrolling through pictures in the apres scene.

Great in many conditions, wet, slushy weather is not one of them though.

Outdoor Research’s Prevail Heated Gloves represent the best of what the industry has to offer in terms of heated equipment.The price of these premium gloves reflects this.

Heated ski gear is tough to get right. But every few years the technology that goes into heated gloves, boots, and more grows by leaps and bounds.

With three settings of heat intensity, OR promises 2.5 hours on high and 8 hours of heat on low. We’ve not yet tested them, but we assume 2 hours and 7 hours to be more reliable. We’ll update as soon as we have more data.

The newest Gordini gloves are the GTX Storm. This is a value-focused model that aims to appeal to the majority of skiers and snowboarders with a quality-cost nexus that impresses.

On top of the sound quality and reliable waterproofing (torrential rains will seep in), there are also features that make the GTX Storm one of the more versatile mid-level ski gloves.

The Mercury Mitten from Black Diamond is a mid-level option for colder days. Skiers that get 10 days a year in will appreciate this when temperatures drop further away from freezing.

At the same time, the liner and the breathability of the material doesn’t make this exclusive to cold days either. Given the reliable waterproofing, this mitt is versatile enough to be an all-season handwear–as long as you won’t miss using your digits.

The Storm Trooper II is a pair of Gordini gloves for backcountry skiers. As such, they do quite alright on the front end of the resort too.

They have a decent balance between warmth and breathability. Combined with good dexterity, durability and a feature or two–that may or may not be useful–the Storm Troopers II are a better value ski glove than most of the serious options out there.

The Alti line is Outdoor Research’s high performance series. Falling in line just behind the Black Diamond Guide Glove in terms of toughness, the Alti glove offers out-of-the-box comfort along with the high degree of warmth and dexterity you’d expect out of a performance glove.

The Alti excels in light-technical applications and is also a top contender for resort skiers with cold hands and big demands.

The Alti is marketed as a high-mobility expedition glove, and while there’s no reason it couldn’t be applied under such circumstances, it does best in a more casual setting. If you’re debating between premium glove models our advice is to look toward the Guide Glove above for toughness and technical suitability, and always the Alti if you want warmth and comfort.

The Lucent line from Outdoor Research has a reputation for reliable heated gloves or mitts where others have failed. This line of products, particularly the mittens, are warm by design, but can’t really be judged by the same standard as typical gloves and mittens when you take the heater into consideration.

Though they’re impressively warm, people often have unrealistic expectations for what’s possible when it comes to heated gloves.

The shell is made of weatherproofed nylon and polyester with goat leather overlays capable of using touchscreens.

The Lucent gloves and mittens offer unparalleled comfort for a steep price. But if you’ve exhausted your other options and never want to worry about your hands while you’re out skiing again, they’ll do the trick.

The Black Diamond Spark offers the additional warmth of a mitten, with all the benefits of a free finger. In keeping with all of other freeride gloves on this list, the Spark series is a no punches pulled, tough-as-nails, full-leather cuff glove.

The Spark series features a range of options from traditional gloves to mittens, but their finger glove is our favorite for snowboarding. The high degree of water resistance and extra dexterity makes fiddling with your binding much less of an inconvenience.

The biggest appeal of the Spark series is the price. It falls right in the Black Diamond target zone of professional standards and affordability, it’s a fully functional freeride glove appropriate for extreme weather conditions.

The flexible seamwork is fully sealed so you can get the maximum amount of movement without worrying about dampness leaking in, and is available in an alternative model with a gauntlet if you’re worried about snow leakage.

Hestra makes somewhere in the ballpark of 400 different styles of gloves, and this is the one that they make for ski pros. It could be the best ski glove you can find. The durability and versatility they offer is hard to match. If you expect to find yourself at the resort every morning, stamping your ski boots and anxiously squinting at the predawn horizon, you can take comfort in the fact that your hands aren’t cold.

The first Hestra gloves were built for lumberjacks using rivet-reinforced leather. In their  “Heli” professional-grade model, they’ve kept the leather and added the better part of a century’s worth of ski industry experience. Hestra has a reputation for quality winter gloves, and though some may groan about the price and the “hype”, my hands have never gotten cold in mine. 

Heli series products are available as gloves, mittens, and three finger “gloves”. All are compatible with a series of interchangeable liners. The mittens are definitely the warmest by design, but all are insulated with Hestra house “G-Loft” polyester fill with a breathable fabric and goat leather shell. The gauntlet cuff makes them pow-proof, and the cinching “snowlock” keeps out the sluff. They’re also ergonomically designed, with a velcro strap and curved hand shape.

The Burton Oven Mitt is about the warmest thing that you can put on your hands outside of a battery-heated mitten. They’re  comically overbuilt and are the waterproof equivalent of down booties for your hands. It’s probably the warmest mitten on this list that doesn’t have a full gauntlet cuff. But unlike some down products, the Burton Oven Mitt won’t get torn up the first time you hit the snow or snag a branch.

The shell of the mitten is made of the waterproof Gore Windstopper fabric. Burton combines synthetic insulation with triple goose down. The palm and thumb are reinforced with touch-screen ready leather.

The Oven Mtt are perfect if you’re constantly troubled by cold fingers, or want a pair of emergency cold-weather gloves that you can ski in

The Gordini Voyager Mitten occupies a similar space to Black Diamond’s Mercury. Gordini’s model is more versatile, and it offers a similar degree of protection without the bulk. They’re a classic take on the mitten constructed from top quality materials, an all-around great product that runs somewhere in the middle of the price pack.

They have everything you’d want out of a cold weather garment of this quality- a totally waterproof shell with sheepskin leather trip, a removable sheepskin merino wool glove liner, a full cuff cinching gauntlet. The liners can be worn without the shell as a lightweight option, but as far as features go the Voyager is relatively simple. A solid mitten with an elegant look and the promise of warm fingers.

The Voyager is a beautiful mitten, that much can’t be argued. But it backs up aesthetic appeal with quality performance, and does all this without being outrageously expensive. Overall it’s a high-performance mitten with more than a little flair, with a very reasonable price tag.

The North Face Montana glove and mitten line is yet another excellent contender in the running for the best budget resort glove. It’s a low profile option that keeps you dry while giving you enough freedom to adjust your equipment without taking your gloves off. They offer all the protection you could want for your average season of resort skiing. With additional features such as touchscreen functionality, heat warmer pockets, and dexterity-boosting finger sleeves in the mittens, they’re perfect daily drivers for getting your laps in at your local mountain.

The North Face Montana line shell is made of Gore-Tex with synthetic leather overlay. It’s completely waterproof and features a full gauntlet cuff to keep slush from sliding down your hands. They’re ergonomically shaped and built for getting the best grip you can on your ski pole, binding strap, or boot buckle. Using an appropriate amount of synthetic fill for the resort environment, with a polyester fleece lining.

While there are warmer gloves out there, the Montana shouldn’t be overlooked as an option for any serious alpine skier testing their options. They’re a tough, no-nonsense option for a reasonable price.

We’ve spent quite a bit of time getting to know Wildhorn Outfitters and their array of affordable winter outerwear. From helmets to snow pants, we’ve found their lineup to be serviceable across the board and a sensible investment for 5-10 ski day seasons.

Here we’ll be taking a closer look at their Tolcat gloves, which keep in running with the rest of Wildhorn’s selection of affordable gear. Probably more resorted-oriented, they have touchscreen fingertips and a mixture of synthetics and goat leather.

I tested them in harsher backcountry and found them to be just enough glove to sneak by for a few laps on chilly days and a pretty nice low-profile option on the shoulder ends of the season.

Below we’ll dig into the Tolcat layer by layer and see how they stack up against other gloves we’ve tested over the years.

In high-output or during demanding winter sports, you’ll need a glove that can juggle breathability, mobility, and warmth without compromise. Arc’teryx claims the Fission SV is their warmest “multi-sport” glove, meaning if you see yourself spending a lot of time off the resort you likely won’t find a better option.

The range of motion of this model is unmatched, ensuring hassle free backcountry transitions and saving you the frustration of taking off your glove for specific tasks.

The Fission SV shell is made of lightweight, windproof polymer overlain with goat leather, with an additional waterproof Gore-Tex insert. They’re filled with Primaloft insulation suitable for subfreezing temperatures, but not necessarily for extreme cold. That being said, you may find the Fission SV a little too warm for uphill travel in the springtime.