UKC

Im trekking up Toubkal, Meru and Kil during May/June.

I have an excellent pair of strong UV protection glasses made by Oakley. prescription and polarised. Cost lots of £.18 months old.

Are these ok ? They dont have side protectors though, so I'm wondering if its worth the risk ?

thanks

Steve

In reply to sterobinson:

oakleys are overpriced shite so early 90s, if you sit on em they snap, shite coatings, look at me wit me oaks with the other 4 mil mugs

get some nice bombproof cheap as chips retro glaicer glasses

Oakleys kick ass - I use mine at work all day every day in summer & they handle all kinds of abuse with fek all scratches & no other damage at all. Look at what people wear in really sunny countries like Auz or NZ and it's Oakleys all the way & for good reason. They are daggy looking & over priced yes - but hey so is pretty much everything else.

Lack of sidies might be a bit grim - some of their range give good side protection but others are way too small to be anything other than 'fashion' wear. 'Pends on which ones you have really.

In reply to sterobinson:

have tried various brands and types over the years, oakley's are about the best, and if you go for the larger wrap around type then these give good side vision protection, although if you have the smaller "fashion" type glasses you may suffer - mind you, there is not much snow on these mountains so it will not be too much of a problem.

In reply to sterobinson:

I have some Oakleys with prescription lenses and, whilst being expensive, they have performed very well for me in brilliant sun at altitude.

jim.

In reply to sterobinson: People obsessed with NEEDING glacier glasses should look at the cover of Climb mag issue 2 I think and see what Ian Parnell is wearing, priceless.

Look at what the locals will be wearing - nothing.. or perhaps some oakley clones made from recycled bin bags?

In reply to sterobinson: Nah man. Get some relatively (to Oakleys) cheap Cebe ones. Be about £35-45. Then your heart won't break when those lenses are scratched to ****. Leave the Oakleys for driving in the car.
Tho, I suppose it depends on your presription.
Oakleys frames being guaranteed forever, you can afford to break or bend them.

Jeez, it's only since I started typing this I realised how big a question it is!

In reply to sterobinson: And whatever glasses you do decide on......don't forget your ídiot string' pl.

In reply to sterobinson:

A pair of mirrored Rayban Aviators and a nice 'tache should sort you out, pal.

In reply to sterobinson:

I tried Oakley Zeros for a while- they were rubbish- let light in at sides and underneath- got headaches. Now have Julbo glacier glasses and they rock (even if side bits keep popping off, which is annoying). Julbos have a far darker tint than the Oakleys too.

In reply to bosh: Surley the lense tint depends on what category of lense and colour that you opt for. I have a pair of oakleys, mainly for MTBing and they have never never been damaged, nor the lenses scratched.

You only have one pair of eyes and so investing a small amount of money in glasses which protect them is a small price to pay!

In reply to Cooper: I have a pair of oakley minutemans and I have to say Ive bought better off a paste table in a disused shop doorway in blackpool, and that mate is as bad as it gets.

In reply to Liathac: So would you be confident wearing your Blackpool shades on a Glacier, in the midday sun with reflection coming back off the Glacier. The lenses probably wouldn't even be UV Categorised. £60 ot £100 is very little for sunglasses which will protect your eyes. compare with some of the other stuff we outdoors type people spend money on, ie Boots, Gore-tex jacjets and the like, Harry Enfield quote "Loadsa money"

In reply to sterobinson:

The most importantant thing is do they look good? Don't worry about all this UV protection malarky. As long as you look cool, who cares if your eyes get trashed? It wont be long before you can get eye transplants on the NHS ;~)

I've been thinking about this. The only time I wear dark glasses is in the Alps because I kind of always assumed that was what you had to do. Am I wrong? I'd dearly like to leave my (old, cheap and scratched) glacier glasses at home this year, not least because since that last time I went I've started wearing prescription glasses / contacts and I could do without the additional faff.

In reply to sterobinson:

Ever looked through a pair of Revos? They make Oakleys seem like some magazine freebie by comparison. The price reflects this though!
For the glaciers that I never go to, I used to have some £40 Cebes, they eventually got nicked, now I have some retro Julbos I got for a tenner in an Ellis Brigham clearout one time. For my everyday I have some that I bought in Next for £6. I lose or break too many glasses to get expensive ones. THe Julbos are very uncool but do the job.

In reply to Mark Torrance: According to my wife, who is an eye doctor, climbing at high elevations like in the Alps without decent sunglasses, especially sunny days on snow or ice, can easily result in snow blindness, which basically means sunburning your corneas. The primary symptoms are pain and extreme sensitivity to light. The symptoms will go away in a day or two, but do you really want to risk spending two days of your climbing trip sitting in a dark room with your eyes hurting, waiting for your vision to come back enough to climb again? I personally don't like wearing sunglasses at all, but in the mountains I put up with it.

In reply to sterobinson: I've got a pair of oakley E-wires that I wear from time to time (though it is a bit of a faff because I have to use contacts with them as I'm so blind, my prescription can't physically be put in the glasses). I have been pretty happy with how they have served me, I specifically like the way they grip my head good and proper, most other glasses slip and slide around when your mountain biking/running/bouncing down a cliff.
I think the need for cutting out light from the side is overestimated by most people. I have never worn side protectors or anything (and I never wear goggles while skiing) and never suffered any ill effects for my sins.
I don't know how good the coating is because I am obsessively careful not to scratch them because they cost so much money!!!
PS Most normal glasses filter out the vast majority of UV wavelengths anyway, leaving you with only the bright glare on a sunny day to deal with.

In reply to Prague:

Thanks for this. Just to push it a bit:

There’s obviously a “to be on the safe side” argument here, but leaving that aside for a moment…

Someone above suggested that locals wear cheap glasses or nothing. Is, say, three hours on a glacier in the afternoon likely to result in snow blindness, or are we just talking about all-day exposure? I'm kind of looking for direct experiences. I have in the back of my mind that that bloke who wrote Extreme Alpinism recommends pale orange tinted glasses (but I might have misunderstood) and that the double-barrelled chap with a shortage of fingers (I really am crap with names today) never wore any eye protection on his polar outings.

Also, is this really true “Most normal glasses filter out the vast majority of UV wavelengths anyway”? Does it apply to contacts.

In reply to Mark Torrance: Good points. I'm guessing that the real problems most likely come with all day exposure, not a few hours, but that's just a guess. I certainly believe that the locals wear cheap glasses or none at all. That doesn't mean that they know what's best for their eyes, just that they are poor. The color of sunglasses has nothing to do with their ability to block UV rays, neither does their darkness. Most sunglasses I see in shops here have little tags telling you how much they filter out UV rays. Supposedly they should filter out 98% or more of UV-A rays and 99% or more of UV-B rays to be safe in "extreme" environments like the mountains. I'd also be curious to know how much plain eyeglasses filter out

In reply to sterobinson: For Sale: Retro - Julbo glacier glasses: 3-stripe lens (different glare pro for ground, eye level & sky)Nose & side protectors, I'll throw in a soft case (Lowe Alpine). £12 including post. email me directly

In reply to Mark Torrance:


Ask the manufacturer. I paid a bit more for lenses with a higher refractive index because I am very short sighted. The result is thinner lenses, the optician told me that these lenses also have a coating that filters out all UV. I have been told on a number of occasions that bog standard glasses filter out a lot of UV and mean you have to try that much harder to damage your eyes.

So far as chancing it is concerned, I think you're crazy, its not worth the risk.

I read that somebody who was on an everest summit day had been wearing glasses the entire day except when he removed them a couple of times to focus his camera to take pictures. At the end of the day he was blind and in agony, he had to be slowly guided down the mountain over the following days (his blindness was only temporary).

The ozone layer is gettin thinner, not thicker (said so in the newspaper a few days ago, recovery has all gone tits up because of some high altitude unusual cloud nonsense)

In reply to Cooper: No, I have Julbo glacier glasses for that. I swear on my life I gave the Oakleys away and they were originals, got some better ones in Poland for around a tenner for posing.

In reply to Prague:
I walk/climb regularly in the snows in winter. As I manage to break or damage most sunglasses I use, I tend to have tried a wide variety. However, the only time I got my eyes burnt last winter was on a cloudy days ski touring when it seemed too dark to use sunglasses. Misty all day and yet I got sunburnt for the first time all season had sore eyes for 2 days. Most decent and well known makes will suffice but make sure you wear them, even if you dont think you need them!

N.B in my experience side protectors are not really necessary for alpine stuff. Just my opinion!