For day tours, I focus on keeping gear (and thus weight) to a minimum, which in turn boosts your skied vertical to the maximum. Backcountry skiing is all about the up — the more you climb, the more you ski. Use day tours as a way experiment with exactly how little you can get by with.
Updated: August 2009
Personal gear list for backcountry skiing day trips.
- Skis & Bindings
- Skins
- Boots
- Poles – Whippet 2x
- Shovel
- Transceiver
- Day Pack
- Sun screen
- Sunglasses
- Headlamp
- Knife
- Water bladder
- First Aid Kit
Clothes
- Socks
- Warm insulated jacket
- Softshell pants
- Shell pants
- Shell jacket
- Long underwear shirts
- Baseball/Sun hat
- Lightweight gloves
- Warm gloves/mitts
- Warm hat
Optional
- Accessory straps
- Goggles
- Helmet
- Camera & film
- Snow saw
- Radios – Talkabouts
- Probe
- Maps, compass & GPS
- Rope – 50′ x 8mm accessory cord
- Guidebook
Just curious: why do you list a probe as optional?
I find it even more curious that a map and compass is an optional item??
I have gone out on a nice day trip only to get fogged out in areas that I have skied over 20 years. I had to pull out my compass, map and even GPS to get our seasoned crew back on track. On that same day other seasoned locals got so disoriented they spent the night out in the woods and had to get rescued.
This must be a typing error, because I can’t imagine not being without compass and map.
Hi Joe – I guess it is relative to where your day trips take place. In the Wasatch all slopes lead to a road, so navigation isn’t much of an issue. Other places obviously vary.
I’m even more suprised that a probe is listed as optional, and both a transceiver and shovel are in Personal gear list. A transceiver and shovel are obsolete without a probe for pinpointing and deep burials. The transceiver, shovel, and probe all work together to save you or your buddies life.