Julbo Explorer Glacier Glasses
November 27, 2008
Holy bug eyes, Batman! I would love wearing these Cat 4 glacier glasses for the “beetle look” alone. The lenses are pretty round and shiny, no doubt about it. They’re not totally dorky, but they will definitely remind you either of insects (but cute ones) or World War I flying aces (with Cat 4 lenses in their goggles). But for this Geargal, whose eyes are so sensitive that she meets Alaska’s three months of winter darkness with a sense of relief, these are just the ticket. I’m one of those people who wears Cat 4 lenses even in the winter months, because I just can’t stand bright light. I even went through a bunch of trouble and expense to get a permit to tint all my car windows limo-dark. It was so worth it, I never get achy, dry eyes anymore, and I don’t get chafed by the sunglasses I was having to wear in all daylight hours. And no one can see in, so I can do WHATEVER I WANT in my car and no one can see me. This comes in handy when making rude gestures at people. But then when I’m in a normal car, I forget that people can see me, so I get busted all of the time making faces and staring at people. Anyway. Sunglasses. So it was getting hard to get me out of my car. I would lock all the doors and howl “but it’s BRIGHT out there!” Luckily for me the Explorers came along and I could join society again. Sorry, society.
The Cat 4 lenses mean they are dark, dark, dark, and the plastic guards on the sides block out almost all of the reflected light. This means I can spend a sunny day on the glacier without being incapacitated by glare by the end of the day. Regular sunglasses let in too much light from the sides and underneath, but the Explorers are designed to block most of that out while not interfering with your peripheral vision. Putting these on when it’s bright out is an amazing relief.
Julbo warned me that these aren’t really made for smaller faces, and that’s somewhat true – they fit my face just fine but the arms (is that what they’re called? You know, the things that go over your ears. Yeah, the arms go over your ears. You know what I mean) are too long and I have to tighten the lanyard to really get the glasses to sit correctly on my face. This just means that Julbo should make these in a smaller size as well, because women need glacier glasses too!
The Explorers do have a tendency to fog when I’m running or skiing, but maybe that’s because of my tendency to breathe with my lower lip jutted out when I’m running or skiing. Quite a mystery, that. If I’m not wearing a hat I don’t have the problem with the fogging, but my point is that while the Explorers sit pretty close into your face, they don’t seal to your face like goggles so you can still fog them up. But they are definitely usable as goggles, for the most part.
My one big beef with these is that my pair is black with neon green accents on the sides (the pair above has black where the neon green is on mine). Hello, what is this, 1991? It is not necessary to bring neon back. I really don’t understand the need for the neon. They’d be way cooler if they were just black. But since these save me an immense amount of eye irritation and allow me to go have fun in the outdoors without resorting to wearing ski goggles for everything, I can put up with a little neon.
Available at backcountry.com! Click here.
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