ok, I'm very new to this (going for my A-license tomorrow) but I thought I'd chip in with a little of my experience gained from ice climbing. I can see some similarities: * Long stretches of inactivity (ride up == freezing your butt off at the belay station) * short bursts of extreme cold (the dive == the actual ice climbing) * good finger dexterity a must (handling ropes == pulling the PC) So the best we ice climbers have come up with is to dress for different thermal 'profiles'. When actually climbing this translates to 'dress light, move fast', when belaying this means putting on lots of layers. This also applies to the glove department. On a long climb I'll carry 3-5 pairs of lightweight liners, two pairs of neoprene / outdoor-type / windstopper-type gloves for the climbing & I pair of heavy-duty gloves for belaying. Stuff gets wet while ice climbing, hence the redundancy. The main difference seems to be that for ice climbing your enemy is water & for skydiving it's wind-chill. So the latex fans make sense to me I'm still diving in this ridiculously big orange student jumpsuit so the obvious solution for me would be to have a 'warm' pair of gloves on the ride up & put on the latex/leather/whatever at 11000ft or so & stuff the warm pair in your jumpsuit. (Dress for different thermal profiles in fancy-speak). I guess I'll find out tomorrow, it should be freezing up there.
