What the Manufacturers say
Hardwearing, eVent® waterproof and breathable glove with leather reinforcement and a stretch softshell back.
Micro fleece lining adds comfort and warmth and Pittards Armortan® palm is durable and grippy.
Additional reinforcement to the palm and thumb for use with poles or tools and a flocking patch on the thumb make this an ideal ski touring or mountaineering glove.
With an extra leather reinforcement on cuff, back of hand and on critical seams the Guide is our most durable glove yet. Ideal for anyone who spends lots of time in a cold weather environment and needs a glove that won't let them down or for anybody who is particularly hard on their kit... hence the 'Guide' name.
Matrix DWS outer fabric
eVent® membrane
Pittards® Armortan® palm
Leather reinforcement on cuff, back of hand and over critical seams
High pile lining on back of hand
Bemberg palm lining printed with Rab® logo design
Box finger pre-curved construction
Back of thumb flocking patch
Detachable wrist leashes
Sizes: S / M / L / XL
Weight: 204g (Large)
Rab Guide Gloves - Davy Wright
We sent Davy Wright a pair of Rab Guide Gloves for his first review for MyOutdoors and asked him to put them to the test in a Scottish winter. Davy is an experienced writer and blogger who's more at home on the mountain than indoors. With Scotland as his playground Davy will be testing and reviewing kit in some of the harshest conditions in the UK, mixing hill walking, scrambling, camping and climbing.
Gloves are difficult to review as they are a very personal thing. Everyone’s hands are different and react differently to conditions. Mine get cold quite suddenly but heat back up quickly once I have something warm and dry over them. Obviously the thing to remember is putting cold hands in gloves is like putting cold water in a thermos. I have a mountain of gloves as I’ve tried different systems over the years to get it right in cold conditions.
When these Rab Guide Gloves arrived I was a bit hesitant, I have had gloves in a similar vein before and they didn’t perform as I’d hoped.
New the leather is solid, this was my initial concern. Although the stretch panel on the back of the glove did allow reasonable movement. The fit is good and they are well put together, the detail on the tip of the index and little finger noticeably so.
When the fingers are held together it produces a nice curve across the tips. This means that although there is bulk to the glove there is also a really nice shape to them. Using them whilst scrambling is a bit easier, getting the tips in to nooks for a decent grip.
Use is what these gloves need, as soon as they were out in their conditions they leather breaks in and dexterity increases. The “kangaroo” colour does that dark thing that light coloured leather does when it gets damp. They then start to look like they’ve been used.
The stretch panel and the elastic cuff, especially across the rear panel, comes in to its own when hands are slightly damp and grip the inner when pulling them on. Nothing too obstructive but the radius at full stretch is beneficial. The inner is fixed also, so when removing my hand when they get a bit sweaty it doesn’t do the mirror effect thing.
The lining is really good. It has a fleece back all the way to the finger tips except the thumb, not sure why. It has that comfort blanket factor but probably more technically traps the warm air to assist in circulation. The palm to fingertip side has “Bemberg palm lining printed with Rab® logo design”, I wasn’t sure what Bemberg was before these gloves arrived, a bit of investigation has found that it is a silky manmade material. (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Bemberg) Having the thinner material on the inside of the grip improves dexterity and it is smooth and comfortable.
The outer, mainly made of “Pittards® Armortan®”, is strong and resilient as you would expect from a guide style glove. The leather has been designed for the kind of rough treatment scrambling on course rock and carrying walking axes gives it. (http://www.pittards.com/leather-innovation/20/armortan) The second layer over the palm and forefinger further build up that resilience, clearly making the durability of these gloves next to life long. They will take a fair bit of punishment. The stretch panels between the fingers and across the back of the hand, again, increasing the dexterity of a normally cumbersome leather glove.
The “eVent® membrane” sandwiched in between adds another barrier to the skin below. The membranes are normally forgotten until they fail. It pains me to say it did fail but on what I think is a small chink in the armour. On a sustained best part of three hours in either scrambling about in snow and, what Peter Kay would call, “wet rain” one of my thumbs got wet! My theory is the “flocking patch” or snot wiper got saturated and wet-out the membrane below. Whilst walking in them the patch was faced in to the rain and was exposed to constant precipitation. The leather and soft shell elements were fine. It wasn’t the only membrane that failed that day, it was in good company. Drying them out would have been difficult on the hill, luckily they headed back home to be dried out.
With just about everything there are down sides. The openings to the glove can’t be closed off once the hand is in it, leaving a bit exposed to the elements when not reaching uphill. It wasn’t the cause of the wet thumb, I did check. They are a bit bulky to be stuffing under cuffs of jackets every time you take them off. It can be a bit draughty around the wrist when the wind forces itself in between the glove and jacket. Using the thumb loops on a base or mid layer will negate this.
I also gave them a try when climbing with technical axes, as some will know and it took doing it again to remind me using these type of gloves in that capacity causes to over grip and cause a bit of cramp. I know this is not what they are for but with such good dexterity for a glove in this category it needed to be tried.
The usual features can also be found, the loops on the index finger to attach a karabiner keeping the openings facing down. Wrist leashes, which can be removed, to keep them close by when more intricate things need done with bare fingers.
Conclusions
Despite my initial concern the Rab Guide gloves are not as bulky and cumbersome as I’d thought they’d be. With use they become supple and useable in conditions that I didn’t expect. I’ve given them a full range of use and in general they have performed admirably. They will dredge through snow and claw up a cold scramble protecting your hands whilst keeping them warm and dry. The materials used have allowed dexterity along with protection from the elements and the environment under paw. If you are looking for a hard wearing, resilient glove this is a contender.