Skiing and climbing are gear intensive sports where a single missing piece of equipment can have a profound impact on your day/trip. You won’t be going far without your skins or boot liners! To help increase my success ratio, I’ve put together these various gear checklists over the years. The lists can be copied off as is, or the individual items clicked on for specific details, recommendations and direct links to Backcountry.com.
1) Backcountry Skiing Day Tours
2) Ski Mountaineering Expeditions
- Gear spread in El Chalten before heading up to the Southern Patagonia Ice Cap.
Ski Mountaineering Racing – FAQ’s, Photos, Video, Links & Tutorials
Baffin Island Skiing Primer/FAQ
Kites
Forget helicopters, new ski resorts or snowmobilies – nothing on earth will open up your skiing possiblities as much as kite skiing. There are many designs and commercially made kites out there, but if you are in the mood to do some stitching, the NASA wing design below delivers a huge bang for the buck and is an excellent expedition kite. Click on the image for detailed instructions.
- A 4.8m NASA wing kite. Small enough to fit in a pocket, yet strong enough to rip your arms off.
I have a question. I want to move into some AT gear. I usually ski Utah and WY. Would like to do 80-90% in bounds/heli and out of bounds for the rest. I am getting praxis rx skis, what at boots to consider? BD, Garmont, Dynafit (Zeus or Titan). Bindings?? Dynafit, marker, onyx? I am looking for one rig to do both in and out-of-bounds. Any help or advice?
Hi Wil – If you are spending 80-90 percent of your time in-bounds or using mechanized access, I’d opt for downhill skiing/performance gear over lightweight BC gear. Something like the Duke/Jester/Baron and a pair of 4-buckle boots. I’m only familiar with Scarpas (they fit my feet perfectly), so I can’t really comment on the other boot options.
Any thoughts on the current crop of inflatable avy packs? In particular i’m looking at the BCA Float 30 and I thought it was interesting you dont seem to use one. Lovin’ the website. Keep up the POV videos!
I am interested in making one of the NASA kites that you have instructions for and am looking for a good source to purchase the supplies required. Can you recommend a mail order source for the fabric, bridling materials, handles and such that are required? Or is there a store in/near SLC that would carry such materials? I am located in BC Canada but I may be through SLC on holidays soon.
Hi Bonnie – I haven’t stitched one up in a while, but when I last did, I got all my materials from an on-line store, which I think is now out of business. The key thing was the Icarex fabric, which is/was a Japanese kiting fabric. You can make them out of regular old ripstop nylon (recommended for your first one), but after a while the ripstop stretches out and loses some of it performance. The bridle lines are just nylon.
For the kite, at 4.8m do you use a harness or do you hand hold it? Also, how often have you found a kite useful for assisted touring?
Hi Corey – Always a harness – those things have an unbelievable amount of pull! On using them for touring, it all depends on how diligent you are about checking the weather/wind patterns and picking the right terrain. Lorne Glick from Silverton, CO is a master at this and he seems to get great tours whenever he goes out. I’m more hit and miss, so it is really the user, not so much the gear.
Hey Andrew- I have a similar question to one asked prior. Though I would love to do more working for turns, I live
in Vt and am primarily riding lifts and skinning maybe
2000 ft a couple times a weekend. I presently have a
baron on a K2 outlaw (92 under foot) and use a Dalbello
krypton. It works for the once a day though 1 ski is heavier that everyone elses setup. I’m hooked but don’t know if and when I’d be doing more. Would an AT boot be
a good place to start and upgrade? Scarpa Maestrale for
example. thanks
Hi Bruce – The boots would be an excellent place to start as a real touring boot makes a huge difference in your enjoyment of the sport. That said, which boot you choose will also influence which binding(s) you can use as boots have to be Dynafit compatible to use Dynafit bindings, and that detail adds about $100 to a boot at retail. But, if you are into touring, it will be money well spent.
Touring requires a different mindset than resort skiing and it is hard to fully enjoy either one without the proper gear. Heavy alpine gear will be a struggle in the BC and lightweight gear will seem underpowered at the resorts. That said, there is something available for almost every aspect of skiing nowadays and it really depends on what you want to do with it and how much/what percentage of time you’ll be spending inbounds vs. out of bounds.
I personally love the Maestrale, but it is very much a touring boot and requires a balanced touring set-up to perform best.
thanks for the insight. My version of the BC (unless I took a trip) is the side country at a resort more often than not. The setup I have now is dedicated so I generally don’t free ski with it but I will skin up and ski a bump line down on occasion. Given that would a slightly burlyer boot with walk mode be a noticeable improvement? What would be your take on the ideal dedicated setup for
resort side country and a couple 2-3 skins a weekend? Would a BC setup be a waste? thanks again