How to choose a backcountry touring pack
When it comes to backcountry ski/splitboard gear, choices like skis, board, bindings, and boots tend to get most of the attention. But another item makes a big difference in your day-to-day experience:
your pack! If you’re new to touring, or just looking for a new pack, you’ll soon notice that most of the packs seem to look similar—and it’s tough to tell which features are actually important.
Here, we’ll clear all that up. With the right pack on your back, the time you spend in the backcountry is more comfortable, more fun, and even safer. If you, like us, are a fan of comfort, safety, and fun, read on.
Basics
If you’re new to ski touring, the main goal is just to get a pack designed for backcountry skiing and/or splitboarding. That means it should have at least one baseline feature: a dedicated pocket or pockets for your shovel and probe. This compartment of your pack will likely have its own access zipper so that, in the event of an avalanche, you only have to unzip one thing to get directly to your rescue equipment!
Features to consider: optimize your shred day
Welcome to the rabbit-hole of ski touring pack design! Don’t feel overwhelmed—we promise it’s fun to nerd out on. Read about the features and options below to wrap your head around what you specifically want for your touring pack. If you’re like us, you may acquire more than one touring pack that you take on different types of outings, because no one pack truly does it all.
Cargo capacity
A good question to start with is how big of a pack you need. Pack size is usually measured in liters—so a 30L pack will carry 30 liters of stuff. That can be hard to visualize, so check out a few friends’ packs (or visit a store) to get a sense of what that means. As a very broad rule of thumb, we see packs in the 20-30L range as nice for a day tour, while 30-40L packs step up to the challenge of big (or complex) tours where you might have a ton of layers, water, snacks, and gear. Packs beyond 40L are great on multi-day outings like hut trips. And once you start getting into 50-60L range and beyond, you’re in the expedition zone.
Pack weight
We all know it’s ideal to carry less weight on our backs–it helps us conserve energy for the adventure at hand! But that starts with the weight of your backpack itself. A large pack or a pack with lots of bells and whistles will weigh more even before you start filling it with your stuff. So as you read on, consider which features are more important, and pay attention to manufacturers’ listed weights for specific backpack models. Some features are well worth the extra grams, while others may add unnecessary material to haul around.
Zipper access
One of the littlest things that make the biggest impact on the day-to-day experience of using the pack: the location of the zipper(s) to access the main compartment. Some packs only unzip from the top, which means you need to take them off to get to your stuff. Other packs might have a back panel that unzips, which can be lovely—just leave the hip belt fastened, swivel the pack around to your front, and unzip the back panel. And some packs have a side zipper, which can also make it much easier to not only get to your stuff without taking the pack off entirely—you can also reach items in the bottom of the pack without pulling everything out.
Helmet carry
This is one feature we insist on: a built-in helmet carry. This is often a mesh or fabric net that stretches across your helmet and holds it onto your backpack. On some packs, it can only hold the helmet on the back of your pack turtle-shell-style. Other models will let you choose between carrying it on the back or on the top. We love having both options when possible, because sometimes you may be carrying your skis or an ice axe on the back of the pack, and having the helmet on top might keep it out of the way.
Ski carry and snowboard carry
This is an important feature! Sometimes, if the slope is too steep to skin up, you’ll bootpack with your skis or board on your back. There are a few different styles of ski carrying, and some packs accommodate only one way, while others accommodate multiple. And some packs only have a good way to carry skis and not snowboards. So check if snowboard portability matters to you.
Styles of ski carry include A-frame (in which you have one ski strapped to each side of the backpack), diagonal (in which you stick your skis together and they ride diagonally across the back of the pack), and one-side (a more “skimo” style that feels a little lopsided but is quick to throw off and on). Meanwhile, there are two main styles of snowboard carry—either vertical or horizontal.
If you’re new to all this, watch a few YouTube videos to get a sense of how you’d most like to carry your skis or board. And manufacturer videos can illustrate how it will work with a given pack. You just want something comfortable and not too fiddle-y.
Integrated hydration bladder/straw
Many people love incorporating hydration bladders into their winter packs, but do so at your own risk—on cold days, bladder straws are notorious for freezing solid. Even worse, bladders occasionally explode, saturating everything inside your bag. In the summer, it’s an inconvenience. In the winter, it’s downright dangerous—you don’t want your warm layers getting soaked.
We’re cautious about trusting built-in hydration systems in the winter. You should definitely avoid them on the coldest days. Consider going with a good old-fashioned water bottle to avoid potential bladder-related trials and tribulations.
Frame size
A pack’s frame size means how big of a body frame—such as shoulder width, chest width, and torso length—the pack will fit. For years, backpack brands only made one “unisex” (read: men’s) frame size. These packs just couldn’t scrunch down comfortably to fit women and people with narrower shoulders, and the shoulder straps slid off repeatedly. Not only that, but the packs’ sternum straps weren’t placed to fit comfortably around women’s chests, and sometimes the waist straps wouldn’t even cinch down enough to comfortably ride on smaller people’s hips.
Fortunately, now, many manufacturers make packs in at least two frame sizes—often a S/M and M/L. If you are a smaller, narrower, and/or female-identifying human, check out the smaller ones. They’ll make for a much more comfortable carry experience!
Accessory pockets
Every pack manufacturer offers different types of accessory pockets to keep small items organized. We love having a few such pockets, strategically placed to make it easy to grab things like lip balm, sunglasses, phone, and snacks. Sometimes these pockets live on the front of the pack along the waist belt or shoulder straps, which we’re big fans of. You never want to be too far from your energy bar!
Some manufacturers go a little overboard with dedicated pockets for specific types of items, like goggles/glasses. Maybe you derive deep joy and satisfaction from such levels of organization. Or maybe you feel like all these pockets are just adding extra weight as well as space you may or may not use on a given tour. (Like, why would you need a goggle pocket on a spring day when you’re just wearing your glasses for the whole tour? Then, the goggle pocket is just wasting space in your pack.)
Airbag
Avalanche airbag backpacks have really caught on in popularity, for good reason—in certain situations, they can improve your chances of surviving an avalanche. But the downside is that this feature adds a lot of weight and bulk to your pack, which slows you down. Also, these packs are very expensive compared to normal packs, and some require maintenance like refilling oxygen canisters after each practice.
To make the decision about whether to invest in (or carry) an airbag pack, we consider what level of risk we’ll be undertaking on our tours, how much extra weight we’re willing to carry, and whether we’ll be in the type of terrain where an airbag would even be likely to help. (It may not make much difference in terrain with trees, rocks, or cliffs, where you’re just as worried about trauma injuries as you are about burial. The airbag only really helps with the burial part.)
Ice axe carry
In the springtime and in ski mountaineering situations, you may want to carry an ice axe (or two!) on your pack. Not every pack has a good axe carry, and not every pack can handle two. And even if the pack does have an axe carry, it might get in the way of your helmet carry, ski carry, or other things when you use it.
And trust us, axe carry isn’t just for the most x-treme folks—in fact, axes are a fabulous way to
minimize risk of taking a long uncontrolled slide on firm snow, so lots of people carry them (or a Whippet pole with an ice axe tip on the handle) in the springtime.
If axe carry may be in your future, study manufacturer photos and videos of packs you’re considering to see if their carry styles are easy, fast, and out of the way of the other stuff you’re hauling around!
Compression straps
This is a simple thing that makes a big difference in your pack’s utility. If your pack has compression straps on the exterior, you can cinch it down whenever it’s not all the way full, which reduces the bulk you’re carrying on your back. You can then extend the straps back out when you’re carrying more in the bag.
Gear loops
Last but not least, strategically placed gear loops (sometimes called “daisy chain” loops) can be incredibly handy if you need to secure items to the outside of your pack, like ski crampons, boot crampons, carabiners, a radio, a GPS/satellite device, or anything else. These loops can be on the back of the pack, on the shoulder straps, on the waist belt, or any combination thereof. We think they’re really dandy, as they add almost no weight but give you a lot of options to Voile-strap or carabiner-clip all sorts of things to the pack exterior as needed. Adaptability is the name of the game in the mountains!
That’s our treatise on ski and board packs! Let us know what features you prioritize. The quest for the perfect do-it-all pack continues, but in the meantime, we like assembling a “quiver” of packs for different purposes.
At UnNew prices on Geartrade, you can afford to!
Beth Lopez is a seasoned writer and creative director who loves to tell tales of adventure and discovery—and finds writing a powerful way to give a voice to people, causes, and places. Beth runs amok in the Wasatch mountains when untethered from her computer. She believes there’s no such thing as a bad ski day and considers animals her favorite people. Don’t tell her mother about her Instagram mountaineering photos.
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