Wearing multiple clothing layers for winter or cold-weather hiking keeps you drier and warmer by moving moisture away from your skin. Sounds simple, right? It is, but many people struggle to understand the science behind layering and how it can guide your base-layer, mid-layer, and shell choices for winter hiking. Check out our clothing recommendations below.

Layered Clothing

The core principle of layering is to dress like an onion, with multiple layers that manage moisture, retain heat, and protect you from the elements.

• Baselayer garments sit directly against your skin and are designed to keep you dry by moving perspiration to the next layer, your mid-layer.
• Mid-layer garments keep you warm, even though they absorb moisture from your baselayers. Some mid-layer garments are more breathable than others and can dry while you wear them, while others are designed purely for warmth and aren’t very breathable. We discuss this further below.
• Finally, an outer shell layer protects against wind, rain, or snow.

Evaporative Cooling and Wicking

Baselayer clothing moves perspiration away from your skin to prevent evaporative cooling. When moisture sits on your skin, it sucks heat out of your body as it tries to evaporate. That’s why perspiration makes you feel cooler in summer. You want to avoid that in winter.

In winter, you want to move that moisture off your skin and through your base layer so your skin doesn’t touch wet fabric. That’s where a mid-layer comes in. The best mid-layers absorb moisture as it leaves your base layer. This is a process called wicking. Ideally, you want a mid-layer that stays warm when it absorbs moisture, or multiple mid-layer garments that do the same.

Wicking works through capillary action, where a liquid is pulled from one layer to another without gravity’s influence. If you’ve ever dipped the corner of a sponge into a pool of water, the water is drawn into the sponge through this process.

The strength of wicking between a base layer and a mid-layer depends on the mid-layer’s structure and absorbency. A porous mid-layer, like a fleece pullover, is very effective at pulling moisture out of a base layer garment because its many small pores suck in moisture like a sponge.

The outermost layer, a shell, is usually the least wicking layer and is designed more for wind, rain, or snow protection. It may passively trap some of the warm air that escapes the mid-layer, but it’s usually not insulated.

Dress like an onion: add layers when you get cold and remove them when you warm up.

Clothing Selection Guidelines

Here’s what the science of layering tells us about choosing winter hiking clothes. 

Base layers

The best base layers absorb little perspiration and wick it efficiently to your mid-layer. Synthetic jerseys and long underwear are clear winners. Thinner baselayers are better than thicker ones because moisture has less distance to travel to your mid-layer. The same goes for more fitted baselayers than looser ones. If you can hold up a base layer jersey and see light coming through, that’s good. It’s even better if you can see the outlines of objects or furniture in the same room.

Synthetic base layers hold up well over time: they’re inexpensive and easy to launder in a washing machine. My gotos are:

• REI Active Pursuits Long Sleeve T-Shirt
• Patagonia Capilene Cool LS Shirt
• Nike Dry-Fit Legend Long Sleeve Tee
• Helly Hansen LIFA Stripe Crew
• Helley Hansen LIFA Pant

Wool base layers hold onto moisture and take much longer to dry, even though they can feel warmer when they’re damp. As far as layering goes, a baselayer’s primary goal isn’t to keep you warm, but to move perspiration off your skin to the next layer. I know people like wool baselayers because they don’t smell as much, but on winter day hikes when icicles hang off my nose hair and beard, I’m more interested in wicking performance than body odor.

Wool baselayers have other issues too, like high care and maintenance requirements (special soap, hand wash, hang dry), and they need replacing much more often than synthetic base layers. They are also a lot more expensive. I’m lucky if I can get two years out of a wool jersey, while I can easily get ten years or more out of synthetic ones. That’s a lot less trash in the landfill with none of the associated overhead of animal husbandry.

Wool baselayers made with a combination of wool and synthetic yarns are a better choice than straight wool and there is a whole segment of the outdoor industry working to make wool suck less. Good examples include Smartwool Intraknit and the Nuyarn garments made by KUIU.

Fleece hoodies and vests are the bread and butter of winter hiking mid-layers

Mid-layers

Fleece mid-layer pullovers and hoodies beat wool because they dry quickly when exposed to air. The problem with fleece is that the outdoor industry has created so many proprietary variants that it’s impossible to know how well a garment will perform without trying it in the field. Gone are the days when all fleece was classified as being 100 gsm, 200 gsm, or 300 gsm and you knew exactly what you were getting. (GSM stands for grams per square meter and describes the weight of the fabric used)

Classic Fleece

If you want a classic 100 gsm fleece, or something close, which is usually plenty for active hiking or snowshoeing, the less expensive fleece pullovers or jackets from REI, Patagonia, and Lands End are a good bet. This type of fleece is dense enough to block light wind and can serve as an outer layer in mild conditions. Fleece vests also make a great mid-layer because they keep your core warm while letting your arms, which need less warmth, breathe.

Ultralight Fleece

Ultralight fleece, in the form of Polartec Alpha Direct Tops and Octa Fleece Hoodies, is another excellent option, available in 60 gsm, 90 gsm, or 120 gsm fabric weights, with 90 gsm as the sweet spot for winter hiking. Neither variety is very wind-resistant, unlike classic fleece, so you usually need to wear them under a windbreaker, softshell jacket, or hard shell. They are much lighter than classic fleece and wick better, which is their main attraction, especially for warmer-weather hiking.

Softshells with Ultralight Fleece

You can also buy wind-resistant softshell hooded jackets that are lined with Polartec Alpha Direct or Octa fleece. I can recommend the Octa-lined Arc’teryx Proton SL Softshell Hoody and the Polartec Alpha-lined Mammut Eiger Norwand IN Flex Air Hooded Jacket. These active-use jackets work well down to about 20F, as long as you expect “dry” precipitation like snow.

Wool Mid-layers

Wool mid-layers can also work, including hoodies, although they wick and dry somewhat slower than their synthetic counterparts. I’ve had the most experience with wool pullovers and hoodies from Minus33, another New Hampshire brand my friend Wanda also likes. While they hang in my closet, they’re just too warm and heavy for me to wear often. Still, they may be a good option if you run cold.

Down or Synthetic Insulated Jackets

Many hikers think insulated synthetic and down jackets make good mid-layer garments. While they are good passive layers to throw on if you take a break and want to ward off a chill, they make remarkably bad active mid-layers because you’ll be too warm if you try to hike in them; you’ll sweat like a pig and soak your base layer and the jacket liner.

You are much better off wearing cooler layers that keep your base layer and mid-layer insulation drier all day. Winter hiking and snowshoeing generate a lot of body heat, and you won’t be cold if you’re moving. But don’t take my word for it. Go try it. That’s how everyone learns what they prefer when it comes to layering winter hiking clothes.

SectionHiker never accepts payment for gear reviews or editorial coverage. When you buy through affiliate links on our site, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Help us continue to test and write unsponsored and independent gear reviews, hiking and backpacking FAQs, and free hiking guides.