How Do You Deal With Dry Cracked Skin On Trail

[Luckydrew]

I always carry a tube of Aquaphor. Hands, lips, inside my nose - anywhere consistently exposed to the dry air. The little 10g tube goes a long way.

[Wandering Daisy]

The biggest improvement to my cracked hands resulted when I started wearing gloves when hiking (especially when using trekking poles). I use cheap cotton garden gloves. They last only one trip, but then I just get new ones. Mosquitoes also cannot bite through these gloves. Leather gloves are more protective, but probably too hot for the Sierra. There may be some suitable bicycle gloves that would work too.

I also take Eurcerin- but the original paste kind. Hand creams with lanoline also help. I wash my hands very well in warm water, dry them, and then immediately put the cream on at night. All these creams simply help hold in the moisture. You have to have some moisture on your skin in the first place. A friend of mine simply uses olive oil. In the past I have used vitamin-E in those round pills- just bite the pill and rub the vitamin-E on your hands.

Cracked hands have to be treated immediately when you first notice the problem. If you let it go, it is much harder to treat.

[RSC]

I'm not saying that you should stop using it, but are you using hand sanitizer? I've been thinking about taking it and have no personal experience, but I've heard that it can be very drying.

[rlown]

I use hand sanitizer for the cleanup after the bathroom break.

[austex]

hand sanitizer is alcohol, which is a solvent/degreaser and will add to dryness. Good point.

[mrphil]

Most antibacterial wipes or liquids use ethyl or isopropyl alcohol and dry your skin out. Purell does make a product called Cottony Soft that also includes vitamins A, E and aloe as moisturizers. But if your hands are really dry, you want to stick with products for just treating that.

Back in the days of concrete and tile, even though we wore rubber gloves...most of the time, we used to soak our hands in apple cider vinegar to heal and relieve the the pain of cracking to the point of bleeding. Thirty years later, and I still cringe at how agonizing that was.

[Lumbergh21]

Thanks again for the suggestions. Yes I do use hand sanitizer, always after doing #2 and usually before handling food (usually wash my hands as well before handling food). I do use gloves while hiking. Specifically, I use "retired" cycling gloves. This last trip, I was using the moisturizer at night and sporadically during the day, starting before my skin started cracking. It sounds like I should start soaking my hands in streams, not just my feet, during breaks. :-)

[oleander]

Gloves. Gloves are the magic word. Full-fingered gloves protect you from sun exposure (which, I'm convinced, is much of the reason for the chapping). They also protect your hands from the poles, from falls, or from any hand-over-foot stuff you might do off trail.

I always bring a moisturizer too. But I found I didn't need to use it much, if I'm wearing gloves.

Did an 18-day trip this year as well. With the gloves, my hands acquired not a single crack.

- Oleander

[rlown]

Gloves. Gloves are the magic word. Full-fingered gloves protect you from sun exposure (which, I'm convinced, is much of the reason for the chapping). They also protect your hands from the poles, from falls, or from any hand-over-foot stuff you might do off trail.

I always bring a moisturizer too. But I found I didn't need to use it much, if I'm wearing gloves.

Did an 18-day trip this year as well. With the gloves, my hands acquired not a single crack.

- Oleander

It is hard to cast all day with full fingered gloves, but I understand your point.

[mrphil]

Instead of using gloves during the day, a fairly heavy application of lotion or whatever moisturizer you use and light cotton gloves at night. It's a pretty common form of treatment for people with really dry hands.