Rab Alliance mitt review
I’ve been meaning to write these up for ages, and now seems like a good time, with winter on it’s way.
This the Rab Alliance mitt.
It’s an interesting arrangement, an eVent and leather mitt with Primaloft Gold insulation, coupled with an inner glove made from Pertex Microlight with more Primaloft Gold. The result is a strong a sturdy mitt for the harder conditions, but a warm and light inner glove for those moments when you need extra dexterity but still need to be warm.
The feature set is good for climbing, with harness clips on the mitts, drawcords you can cinch with your teeth and built in leashes.
The combo is a good one, the inner gloves are very warm and windproof and are adequate for walking on winter days on their own. They’re almost identical to my Montane Prism gloves in terms of material and style, but the Alliance gloves are a little warmer.
Pop the mitt on top and it’s a different beast. Grip is good, and weather resistance is awesome. They are super warm when used in combination. The mitt on it’s own is decent too, so you really get three handwear options for the price of two.
My only concern is around longevity. The mitt is super hardwearing, it shows no signs of wear at all after a full winter and a fair bit of spring. The inner glove on the other hand (pun intended) has already worn through the Pertex in places. This is partly due to me using them to clear ice and debris when placing fiddly pro, along with general winter camp admin with them.
Oddly you can’t buy the inner glove on it’s own, so I guess I’ll have to replace with something else.
On the whole, I like them and they were first choice to go into my pack over the winter. They are fire-and-forget, you know you’ll be warm enough if you take them. Lets see if they last another winter.
Hestra do a 5 and 3 finger insulated army expedition inner glove which would be a very good replacement inner.
Think these would be warm in -20 conditions?
I’ve worn them down to -13C or thereabouts and they’ve been fine. I reckon the would go lower.