Choosing gloves for Kilimanjaro can make a big difference in keeping your hands warm and comfortable during the trek. Just like layering your clothing, you should also have a couple types of gloves.
To clarify, climbing Kilimanjaro is trekking, not mountaineering. Therefore, you won’t have your hands in the snow. But it does get cold at night—especially summit night. Furthermore, the temperatures can be below zero. Keeping your hands warm is important to making the summit. If you don’t have the correct gloves your freezing hands will make it miserable.
With that in mind, here are our recommendations for different types of gloves you should consider bringing for your climb.
Lightweight gloves
These gloves should be dual-purpose, providing warmth and protection for your hands as you hike and use trekking poles. Look for gloves made from materials such as silk, wool, lycra, polyester, nylon, or fleece that are both durable and warm.
Mid-weight or wind-blocking gloves
These gloves should be thicker and more durable than lightweight gloves, and should be able to block the wind, keeping your fingers warm and dry. Many of these gloves also allow for touchscreen usage.
Heavy gloves
These gloves should be able to keep your hands warm, dry, and block the wind, and should be made from materials such as Gore-Tex with a liner. They can be ski or snowboarding gloves, mittens, or mountaineering/trekking gloves made of leather, goatskin, or nylon.
Glove Examples
With that in mind, here are a few different types of gloves you should consider bringing for your climb.
Light
Mid
Heavy
Glove Companies
There are many companies that make gloves. Here are a list of a few.
Glove Fit
Make sure your gloves fit properly before heading to Kilimanjaro. View the image to see how to measure your hand. then use those measurements with the chart below.
Glove Size Equivalents
Some manufacturers indicate glove sizes by number and others by letters standing for Small, Medium, Large, etc.
We always indicate the size of a pair of gloves the same way the manufacturer does. Use this table to translate between “letter sizes” and “number sizes”.
| Sizes for UNISEX Gloves and Mittens | ||||||||
| – | XXS | XS | S | M | L | XL | XXL | XXXL |
| Hand Circumference (inches) | 6.5 | 7 | 7.5 | 8.5 | 9 | 9.5 | 10 | 11 |
| – | ||||||||
| Sizes for WOMEN’S Gloves and Mittens | ||||||||
| – | XXS | XS | S | M | L | XL | XXL | XXXL |
| Hand Circumference (inches) | – | 6 | 6.5 | 7 | 7.5 | 8 | – | – |
| – | ||||||||
| MEN’S SIZES | ||||||||
| – | XXS | XS | S | M | L | XL | XXL | XXXL |
| Hand Circumference (inches) | – | 7 | 7 ½ – 8 | 8 ½ – 9 | 9 ½ – 10 | 10 ½ – 11 | 11 ½ – 12 | – |
Other Glove Considerations
In additional to getting the right glove, a couple other items you want to also think about.
1. Color: While black matches everything, they can get lost easier. Especially at night, in the dark. They are also more difficult to find in your duffel back.
2. Clips: to keep one glove from getting lost, we recommend purchasing gloves with clips so you can keep them together.
3. Liners: If your hands get really cold, you may want to go a size larger so you can fit liners inside your gloves.
4. Mittens: If you choose to go with liners, a mitten may be a better option for you so it’ll easily slide inside.
5. Touchscreen compatible. You’ll be taking many photos and videos along the way. When its really cold, you aren’t going to want to remove your gloves. We recommend a glove that has touch screen.
Smart Phone Settings
If you don’t have touchscreen compatible gloves, then we remind the following settings for your smart phone.
Android: You can take photos by pushing the power button and the volume buttons.
iPhone: Go to Settings>Accessibility>Touch and assign one of the Back Tap actions to open the camera. Then press the side button once, and double (or triple) tap the back to open the camera. Finally, use the volume button to take a photo.
Final Thoughts
We hope this article helps you choose gloves for Kilimanjaro, ones that’ll be functional, keep your hands warm and dry, and of course look fashionable in all your photos.