Welcome!

Welcome! Ultralight backpacking is my passion, and keeping up on new technologies, gear, and techniques relevant to UL backpacking is what floats my boat. I'm always looking for the lightest, most functional gear to improve a lightweight or ultralight backpacking kit, and report my impressions and field testing results here. For hikers wanting to keep up on the latest and greatest ultralight backpacking gear, this is a good place to hang out. Also, there is a lot of information here (and on our informational website Southwest Ultralight Backpacking) on useful techniques and backcountry etiquette -- food for thought for hikers wanting to lighten their load and their impacts.

My goal for Ultralight Insights is to understand, test, and report on new technologies and gear of interest to lightweight and ultralight backpackers. It's a passion after all, so we just plain enjoy talking about it. I hope readers will add their own wisdom and comments, respond to my questions, ask their own questions, and correct me if I get something wrong. Happy hiking! Will

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

GEAR REVIEW and My Favorite Gear #4 Gorilla Grip Gloves for Ultralight Bushwhacking


By Will Rietveld

I do a lot of off-trail hiking, and I like to wear lightweight liner gloves for summer handwear. However, these two things are not very compatible – I frequently wear holes in the fingers of my liners from grabbing branches and rocks, which gets me in trouble with my wife (who repairs them for me, bless her heart). The solution I found is Gorilla Grip gloves, which are super-durable and weigh just 1 ounce per pair in size XL. They are similar to the nitrile-coated gardening gloves you can get at hardware stores, but much better. Besides being lighter, they have a nicer coating that is more compatible with backpacking and camping, they’re fairly warm, and they breathe very well. I got mine at Home Depot for US$5, which is cheap for backpacking gear.

On backpacking trips, I’m amazed with their grip on rocks, their durability, and comfort over a fairly broad temperature range. They’re great for scrambling. No more glove liners worn through on the finger tips. This is a good example of finding off-the-shelf inexpensive gear that works great for ultralight backpacking.

Gorilla Grip Gloves weigh just 1 ounce/pair for size XL and cost $5 at Home Depot. They are very durable, grip really well, fairly warm, and breathable.




2 comments:

  1. Nice to see another UL backpacker using Gorilla Grips. A friend gave me a pair earlier this year, they've been on every trip with me since. I mainly use them for camp gloves, my hands used to always get beat up breaking firewood, moving rocks etc...no more, and they make gripping thin Spectra cord for bear hanging so much easier.

    ReplyDelete