Montane Prism Mitts- a re-iteration

I get cold hands. (And cold feet- but that is more a cycling issue- of which I shall bore you about another time)- and so I wear gloves and mitts an awful lot. In the past few years I've probably spent more money on various hand coverings than I would care to admit, but one set of mitts has come out on top of all the others in terms of warmth to weight ratio.

Montane Prism Mitts

I come back to these time and again. They are by far the most used handcovering in current circulation in the running drawer- and tend to get packed in a bag no matter what the season or weather. It's always nice to have something to warm your hands up with, and at the crazy light weight and virtual forget-about pack size- these are amazing.

No. They are not waterproof, and yes, if they get drenched, they do tend to get a bit chilly, so if there is a chance of rain a set of Tuffbags get deployed as well. As a set, these 2 mitts have seen me through most races, runs and challenges in the past 3 years.

Minor issues that need to be noted....
I have had 2 pairs of the Prism mitts so far. The first ones continued to be brilliant for about 2 years. At that point, it was noticeable that my hands were colder during winter runs- the insulation seemed less insulative and there came a point where it was almost like I wasn't wearing mitts at all- my hands were so cold! Something was definitely up... so I borrowed Lynnes pair for a run and WOW! my hands were toasty again.
Dead insulation in the originals? Not entirely sure- I do still have them though, so I will be doing a bit of a post-mortem on them.

Yup- its a bit fragile on the palm- and these are nearing the end of their life.

The second pair have been going for a good couple of years- maybe even 3 years now. The insulation is indeed dying a bit, but more obviously, I've slipped on a couple of rocks and trashed the palm on both of them.
Lightweight does indeed mean things are not exactly durable, I'm down with that. So I stuck on some tenacious tape to see how they went... not great. The tape has come off (I was being fairly stingy, I have to admit), and the wind whistles through the holes in the mitts.

I think it is about time to do some de-stitching and see if I can make a single pair of useful franken-mitts out of the remains of the 2 pairs I have kicking around.... though come winter, I suspect I will be putting my money down for another pair of Prism Mitts.