More About Hiking In Sun Gloves

Best sun gloves for hiking criteria

• Protects skin from harmful UV: Obviously that’s the whole point. UPF 50 rating is preferred.
• Comfortable: For all day wear, your gloves must feel and fit comfortable. This usually involves some degree of stretch fabric back of hand.
• Cool, breathable, moisture wicking, and quick drying: You don’t want to make your hands any warmer and sweatier than they already are while walking uphill in hot sunny weather.
• Dexterous: The best sun gloves are designed for all-day wear and as such should be dexterous and not impede basic tasks. This includes opening packs, accessing storage bags, using your phone, pitching a tent, etc. All of the above are why we strongly prefer fingerless models.
• Durable: Your sun gloves must be durable enough to hold trekking poles all day long. However, this is a balancing act, as you also want them to be as thin as possible for heat minimization and breathability, and as dexterous as possible for everyday tasks. While some sun gloves are more durable than others, none are perfect. We try to address durability in our glove write ups.

Why we think fingerless makes for the best sun gloves

While there are pros and cons to both, we strongly prefer hiking in fingerless/half-finger sun gloves over full-finger models. Like a cap or base layer, sun gloves are the type of garment that you will likely wear for all or most of the day while on-trail. As such, you want them to not impede basic tasks like opening your pack, digging around inside storage bags, opening food, using your phone GPS, pitching the tent, etc. The difference in dexterity is massive, despite the fact that full-finger sun gloves are highly dexterous to begin with, at least as far as most gloves are concerned.

The advantage to full finger sun gloves, of course, is that they protect your finger tips. This is advantageous in extreme sun exposure, such as high altitude mountaineering and glacier travel. But beyond that, we value the dexterity of fingerless highly enough that we’re willing to spend the time and energy applying sunscreen to our finger tips, despite the added hassle. Finger tip burns are extremely uncomfortable, and sun screen must be applied regularly, like with other exposed skin.

Other minor advantages to hiking in sun protection gloves

• Abrasion-resistance: In addition to the sun protection, the best sun gloves will also offer light duty abrasion-resistance. While they definitely aren’t designed for hard labor or rough handling, it is nice to have an added layer of skin protection when placing your hand onto scratchy rocks during scrambling sessions, climbing over downed trees, or while brushing past overhanging foliage.
• A bit of added warmth: While the best sun gloves all attempt to be as cool and breathable as possible, they are still an added-layer of fabric. As such the end result will make you warmer, rather than cooler. This is bearable in hot conditions because the UPF is worth having, but usually quite desirable in moderate-to-cool conditions, and especially in windy conditions. They are perfect for that transition point when fleece liners would be too warm, but bare skin is a bit chilly.
• Improved grip and comfort with poles: Depending on the model of your sun gloves and the composition of your trekking pole handles, the palm surface may improve your grip, increase comfort, and decrease the likelihood of blisters while hiking with trekking poles all day long. If you have struggled with hand comfort while hiking with trekking poles in the past, we encourage you to try them again using one of the more durable pairs of trekking poles.