Vegan Ice Climbing Gloves?
Steph,
I saw your web site and thought you might be a perfect person to ask. My girlfriend recently has gone back to being a vegan. She followed this by getting rid of all leather from her wardrobe. She has ice climbed with her father in the past and we are looking forward to some ice fun this winter here in Colorado. I was about to buy her some BD ice climbing gloves (the 09 pumishers are half price on BD’s web site) and thought the leather in the gloves would be an issue. Do you know of any vegan gloves that would do the trick? I am most worried about the palm material withstanding the heat of rapelling. I have read several reviews of people melting the synthetic palm materials of many gloves. I think the OR alibi gloves would be vegan but pretty tecnical for a beginner with leashed tools. I have also thought of emailing the folks at RBH designs. Maybe they know of something even though their gloves have leather palms? Any input would be awesome!
Thanks,
Walt
PS: Now I’m going to turn Monique onto your web site! Thanks for all the hard work!
Hi Walt,
This is a great question, and I don’t have an answer for you! All of my ice gloves are pretty old, and they do have leather palms (I just double checked). I wonder why you think the Alibi gloves might be too technical though? My experience with ice climbing was that when I started to get better (more articulated, sized correctly) gloves, ice climbing got a lot more fun and easier 🙂
But it would be great to hear if anyone has any other suggestions on this?
🙂 Steph
I have the Alibi gloves — they are not insulated so might be too cold when you’re not actively climbing. Also I believe it’s not recommended to rappel or belay with them so you need another pair of gloves anyway. I think for a beginner any warm, waterproof mountaineering glove would be fine for ice climbing. Of my glove collection, these seem to be vegan:
http://www.outdoorresearch.com/site/w_s_gripper_gloves.html
http://www.outdoorresearch.com/site/w_s_arete_gloves.html
I wear my fleece gloves (first link) all the time so they only last me a year or so — but it’s usually the finger tips that wear out before the palms.
These are my primary ice climbing gloves:
http://www.eider.com/clothes_woman-2/Snowsports-3/Gloves-TAOS-W-1080.html?code=2471
I’m actually not sure if they’re leather, can’t tell from the description. Might be worth contacting the manufacturer.
My gloves from Cloudveil and BD are leather.
(yes, I have that many gloves).
Thank you Laurel! Great info!
Hey Steph and Walt,
Wow, it’s sort of amazing how Twitter connects folks eh? Anyhow I just wanted to add a comment to the post with regard to the Alibi glove. While they are in fact Vegan approved, they are also fairly cold gloves. I’ve found that beginners (tending to move slowly, hence generating less heat) can get quite cold. The Alibi gloves have a great palm material for handling tools, but they do lack insulation. Other OR options that, while not super technical, could work for ice climbing (read: waterproof) would be the Adrenaline gloves and the Arete gloves. Both have a synthetic palm, insulation and a waterproof insert…sorry don’t want to make this an OR commercial, just trying to be helpful.
Good luck with the coming ice season!
Cheers,
ORGEAR
thanks! great to get some info straight from the source, and thanks for making a vegan friendly product…
hey all,
while on the subject of mountain climbing, i’ve been trying to get hold of some vegan mountain boots. i guess this might have been discussed already as had it explained to me that all boots would be leather by a shop assistant that continued to try to sell me leather boots.. :p
i found the Garmont Epic boots to be vegan, but was wondering if anyone had more information or could point me to a discussion on it somewhere. (Garmont is not widely distributed in UK, and variety is nice)
thanks for any help, L n L!
JR
Several of Scarpa’s new phantom range of boots are vegan friendly as they are entirely synthetic.
I know this information is years old by now, but I was just searching for vegan ice climbing gloves and upon looking at your suggestions on REI, see that the Alibi has leather on the palm and the Alibi Alpine has leather palms and wool lining. Perhaps this has been added since your last reply.
The Arete does seem to be vegan though.
Thanks for your help!
And thanks for being awesome, Steph!
thanks Jessica: we may need a current post/review on some gloves!
I found some for a technical winter glove post on my site, but I’m not a climber, so I’m not sure which would be best for ice climbing. Hopefully at least a couple would work! : http://www.veganoutdooradventures.com/vegan-technical-winter-gloves/
thanks!