By Ted Bendixson

Consistently voted as Pow's best glove ever, the Sultan Glove has a lot of hype to live up to. It's designed to give you the two most important things you could want out of a glove: resistance to extremely cold temperatures and increased dexterity. Pow has made a glove that's as warm as a mitt while sacrificing almost none of the mobility you get from a five finger glove. How did they do it?

The Sultan Glove is made from state-of-the-art insulation materials that are both very light and highly heat retentive. Inside the glove, you'll find a Gore-Tex liner surrounded by a layer of Primaloft insulation. Gore-Tex is a one-way street for moisture. Only water vapor can get through. So when you're heating up while hiking the backcountry, your hands will stay totally dry. That's good because it means they won't freeze later on while you're waiting for your bro to locate his secret powder stash.

You may have heard of Primaloft insulation as well. It's an unrivaled synthetic fiber that's as heat retentive and compressible as insulation gets. If you can imagine taking all the insulation inside of that huge puffy jacket of yours and then compressing it to a thin layer, you'd get the idea. Then again, you sort of wouldn't because Primaloft is warmer than your puffy. That's how the Sultan Glove got so small yet so toasty.

I've been riding with the Sultan Glove for a month now, and it does an awesome job of handling the nastiest and coldest of days. What you'll really notice is how waterproof this glove is. All of my other gloves seem to hold onto the excess moisture from the previous day of riding, but whenever I put these on, they're as fresh as the first day I got them. I'm gonna chalk that up to the Gore-Tex liner. I honestly think these gloves dry out faster than my other pairs.

If you do get really cold (and honestly, who doesn't?), Pow has added a heat pack pocket to the back of the Sultan Glove to help you out. On those super cold days, you can simply toss a heat pack or two into your gloves, and you'll be good to go. I found this feature nice to have when the thermostat drops below zero out in the backcountry. You never know when something is going to blow in, so it's nice to have a way keep your hands warm when the unexpected happens. You won't need it most days, but it will really really help on the one day you do need it.

At $100, the Sultan Glove is somewhat pricey. It's not the most expensive glove on the market, but it sure does perform like them. And guess what? It's made of the same materials. It's got the goatskin leather palms and the double-stitching to prevent tearing. It's even got one of my favorite glove features, the Snot Absorption Pad (a.k.a. SNAP) on the thumb. With all the different colors and styles you can get this glove in, it's sure to be out in full force this season.

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