WARMING WET GLOVES ON THE CLUTCH COVER, AND HOW NOT TO HURT YOURSELF DOING IT
9 min · Free lesson · written from fifteen years in the terrain
After this lesson you can use a shut-down clutch cover to warm wet gear without burning yourself, melting your kit or standing next to a machine someone might start, and you know why dry spares are the real answer.
The Technique
- Late in a big day, saturated, hands going numb. The clutch cover on a sled that's just been shut down is a genuinely useful heat source. It's an old trick and it works. It also has a very real way of going wrong, so here's both halves of it.
- The technique. After the machine has been shut down, the clutch cover holds usable heat for a good while. Lay wet gloves, or mitts, liners, a balaclava, flat on the cover and let residual heat drive the moisture out of them while the group regroups, eats, or digs.
- Nobody starts that machine. This is the big one. The primary clutch behind that cover is a spinning mass. If someone fires it up while you're leaning over it with your hands on the cover, or while your gloves are sitting on it, the outcomes range from lost gear to serious injury. Before you put anything on a clutch cover: take the key and the tether with you, not in the ignition, not left on the seat, on you. Tell the group out loud that gear is on the clutch cover and the machine is not to be started. Don't do it on somebody else's sled without telling them.
- It can be hot enough to burn. A clutch cover after a hard climb can be well past what bare skin tolerates. Test with the back of a gloved hand first, not with bare fingers. Don't press bare hands onto it to warm them, hover, or use a dry layer between.
- Synthetic gear melts. Modern glove shells, liners and goggle frames are plastics and coated fabrics. They will deform, shrink, delaminate or melt onto a hot surface, and a melted glove is a ruined glove. Check every few minutes, don't put gear down and walk away.
- Know what you're touching. The exhaust, muffler and heat exchanger are much hotter than the clutch cover and will burn instantly and severely. Learn the difference on your own machine, in daylight, before you need to know it in the dark.
- Never run an engine to generate that heat in an enclosed space: a shed, a tent, a snow shelter, a trailer. Carbon monoxide is odourless and kills fast in exactly the kind of space you'd want to be in when you're cold.
- Melting is not drying. Warming a saturated glove drives some moisture out, but you'll often end up with a warm wet glove, which cools fast once you're moving again. It's a stopgap, not a fix.
- The actual fix is dry spares. Most newer sleds have a heated storage compartment in the dash. Put a spare pair of dry gloves and a spare set of goggles in it at the start of every day. Not the ones you're wearing, a dedicated spare set that lives there. Warm, dry goggles are the difference between seeing and not seeing when your first pair fogs or ices up, and a fogged goggle in flat light is a safety problem, not a comfort problem.
- Use that compartment properly. Don't overload it, because airflow matters and gear jammed against the heat source is gear that melts. Check what your specific machine's compartment is rated for: some are gently warmed, some get hot enough to damage electronics, so don't assume it's a safe place for a phone or a battery. Glove liners, a beanie and a chocolate bar in there cost nothing and have saved plenty of days.
- The principle underneath all of it: in the cold, wet is the enemy and dry spares are the answer. Warming gear is what you do when you didn't bring spares. Bring spares.
Common Mistakes
Gear on the clutch cover with the key still in the ignition or sitting on the seat. Fix: key and tether come off the machine and onto you, and you tell the group out loud that the machine is not to be started.
- Testing the cover with bare fingers, or pressing bare hands onto it to warm them. Fix: test with the back of a gloved hand, then hover or put a dry layer between.
- Laying gear on the cover and walking off to dig. Fix: check every few minutes, because shells, liners and goggle frames deform, shrink, delaminate or melt onto a hot surface.
- Treating a warmed glove as a dry glove. Fix: it's a stopgap, and a warm wet glove cools fast once you're moving again.
- Using someone else's clutch cover without telling them. Fix: tell the owner, and never do it on their machine without saying so.
The Drill
On your own machine, in daylight, straight after a ride: shut it down, take the key and tether off the sled and onto you, then find and name the clutch cover, the exhaust, the muffler and the heat exchanger, testing each with the back of a gloved hand so you learn the difference by feel before you need it in the dark. Then pack the heated compartment the way it should live all season: dedicated spare gloves, spare goggles, liners, beanie, nothing jammed against the heat source, and check the manual for what that compartment is rated for.
Key and tether on you, and the group told out loud, before any gear or hand goes near a clutch cover. The exhaust, muffler and heat exchanger burn instantly and severely. Never run an engine for heat in an enclosed space - shed, tent, snow shelter, trailer - because carbon monoxide is odourless and kills fast in exactly the kind of space you'd want to be in when you're cold.
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