Hi Karina!
Hey, Thanks for joining our forum on gloves and their extended benefit above and beyond the call of tree duty, and that is keeping your hands in a state where you are invited to grope, I mean fondle, I MEAN gently caress your woman. This is a reality, not just a casual treeguy issue.
I climbed for about an hour the other day gloveless. I'm blessed with this power grip, developed over 12 years of wrestling in high school and college. When I clamp down without gloves, it's a short while and i'm feeling pain, hands take a beating and I end up using my grip less , simply because the pain. Treecare is not nice on hands, no two ways about it. But safety, not supple hands is the reason I use em.
Leather gloves are generally loose on my hands. if I use something tight-fitting, like deerskin, or even better, pigskin, inevitably one finger blows out. Then I have to use them, and another finger will blow out. when the pair just gets too annoying and my fingertips are getting too torn up, I throw the pair away in disgust. So much for 8 or 10 bucks. Ever gotten a pair of leather gloves wet, had them dry out and then you try to put them on? That's a lot of fun.
I like the latex-surfaced smurfies. They fit tight, protect my palms and fingers from roughness and filth, they allow me a grip BETTER than bare-handed and at about a buck a pair, they're cheap. I can dial my cell phone with them on, and I can adjust the station or volume of my ear-rotective radio headset. I can spin bar nuts on an off and do the bar and chain thang all without having to repetitively take gloves off and on. At night I can go home and not have to soak my aching hands in epsom salts. I can work my 12-string guitar or Elizabeths nice legs. These are the reasons I've gone to the smurfies and rarely do I climb anymore without them.
