Glove Recommendation?

[ndonaldj]

These $30 Wells Lamont gloves only lasted one single trip to the bottom of Nielson's Well Cave. Does anybody have any recommendations on gloves that would last maybe two.... or even three trips??

[jasonbx]

Can you tell what caused them to wear out during your trip? I have never found a perfect answer myself, but some are better for different styles of caves.

I typically buy my gloves on sale for $5-10(ish) whenever I can. Mostly so I can throw them away at any time and not feel bad. Harbor Freight tends to have a variety of styles on sale fairly often. I haven't found anything impressive enough that I have purchased much more than a second pair ever.

I have found certain kinds of gloves have stitching in bad locations for vertical caving. If there are stitches anywhere the rope runs on your brake hand for vertical work, it tends to blow out the stitching quickly, especially if the gloves are wet. I like leather because they don't usually wear through quickly, but when getting wet and dry they tend to become rock hard in between trips and have to be broken in again and again. And of course very wet caves are often hard on leather gloves in general, as well as them not being overly warm when wet.

I have tried some neoprene gloves, but they make my hands sweat and I really didn't like them.

The cloth/canvas ones I have tried so far weren't real durable, but typically cheap.

Generally the less stitching the better, usually that is where mine blow out is anywhere they are sewn. After thinking about that for a few minutes, I wonder how some sort of leather mitten with all your fingers together would work? :)

Hopefully some of the folks that have more experience in the deep cold caves like Nielson's will chime in. The last couple years I have been on pretty minimal vertical cave trips, and typically a little warmer locale.