Seeking clothing suggestions for travel in very high, very cold mountains

[David Martin]

My wife and I are starting to plan a trip I've long wanted to do; overland across the Himalayas from Tibet to Nepal, which involves a lot of travel through cold high mountains. We're in the U.S. now mostly live in Thailand these days and have very little cold weather clothing there, so we'll have to bring whatever we need when we head to Thailand next month.

We get cold easily and don't have good tolerance for the cold. Because there will be a lot of plane / train / car / hotel transfers I'm hoping to bring warm clothing that isn't very bulky and won't take up a huge amount of suitcase space.

We both have warm hiking pants, good socks, and warm top and bottom underwear so I'm mostly thinking about upper body stuff, especially jackets, which we want to buy in the U.S.

Any recommendations for suitable jackets, gloves, and other little things that will keep us comfortable would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[JeffH]

I think you might want layers rather than a single warm piece, that way you can adjust to temperature and activity changes. Of course then you have the issue of packing them all around. For backpacking I start with a wool t-shirt and long sleeve shirt to walk in and have a shirt specifically for sleeping, a Houdini wind shirt and a down puffy jacket when I get to camp.