High Sierra Topix

You can tell I'm gearing up (or at least bored ) from all these gear questions.

Anyone out there ever bought prescription alpine glasses, for example "glacier glasses," the kind with dark panels to block out light that comes in from the side or top? I've found a couple of Internet sources, but I'm not real excited about ordering stuff like that from the Internet without a recommendation. They'd havea to be bifocals. I don't recall seeing anything like this at my local optometrist, but maybe that's because I live in Maryland instead of, say, Boulder, CO...

-B2

Bill

Not exactly an answer to your question but as another old fart I use progressive (3 prescriptions built in with no line) polarized lenses. I use the lightest frames I can find and plastic lenses to save even more weight so my nose dosen't get sore. This rules out the little leather blinders. I recall seeing lightweight foam/neopreme blinders that could be slipped over the temples of glasses to block sun from the sides at ski shops a few years back but a quick internet search came up blank. Unless you are doing extensive above timberline over the snow in clear weather mountaineering I would think that glacier glasses would be a bit of overkill.

The advantage of polarized lenses is they are really helpful when fishing and they really cut down on glare on your windshield when driving. I don't leave town without mine. By the way I left mine in the car at the trailhead when I did a Sawmill to Taboose trip in september, above treeline a good portion of the trip and my regular photo sensitive glasses did fine except I didn't catch any really big fish like I do when wearing my polarized sunglasses.

I did a quick search for prescription glacier glasses on the internet and came up with quite a few hits.

Merrry Christmas

mike

I got some prescription Oakley's several years back, and they have been great.
They are the wrap style so no light gets in from the side and have served me well
in extremely bright and snowy conditions.

I have some really nice wrap around Ray-Bans that do a great job keeping the sun and glare out.
Your best bet for extreme glasses is to talk to someone locally who does glasses and tell them what you're thinking about and they can give you good ideas as to what to look for. Then order the glasses and have them put the prescription lenses in them for you. That way they can set up the bifocal for you and they usually take the responsibilty for things if they go wrong. Hope this helps.

JMat

I bought some relatively cheap (under $50 on sale) Bolle glacier glasses that have removeable leather side shields and took them to my optometrist and they were able to take out the factory lenses and send them out to a lab for prescription lenses. I got plastic lenses as dark as they could make them with UV blocking treatment. These particular frames do not have overly curved lenses or an unusual shape, which may make it hard to get get lenses.