Backcountry Gear You can’t live Without!
By: Dan Solo
Tags: Snowboarding, Skiing, Snow, Backcountry, Avalanche

In the backcountry the terrain is limitless. This is in the Shiga Range wilderness facing the Sea of Japan

I am incredibly lucky to live and work in a little ski resort in the heart of the Japanese Alps, Madarao Mountain Resort. Madarao has become a mecca for untracked powder both in the resort and for adventurous souls the backcountry extends the terrain you can play in to extreme levels. If you stand on top of Mount Madarao and look around the 360 degree view you’ll see more runs, chutes, volcano faces and tree runs than you would be able to ride in a lifetime of exploration. Admittedly our region is blessed with insane amounts of snow and is particularly rich with perfect pitched mountains and exploring them is mind blowingly fun.

To get into the wilderness and stay safe it requires gear and knowledge because even though temperatures in Japan are relatively stable compared with Europe and North America avalanches still do happen. Here’s a rundown on what you simply can’t travel without and a few of the very nice to haves as well.

The bare minimum is a beacon, shovel, probe, a pack, waterproof outerwear and avalanche training. It’s also a damn good idea to have water, food, extra gloves and warm gear in case you get stuck and gotta hole up for the night.

Avalanche training

Understanding the bonds between the layers in a snowpack is crucial to making good decisions

Never ever venture into the side or back country if you haven’t had the training or are being guided by a professional. You can have all the right gear and not know how to stay safe and keep your friends safe. The best tool you have for making sure you never get into a pickle is knowledge. Do an avalanche safety course. It will open a world of terrain up to you and the science and practice of snow safety is totally fascinating.

With knowledge you can assess the conditions to reduce your risk as the danger level can change in just a few minutes and if you don’t know the science and techniques you may not realise you have crossed into epically dangerous terrain.

Most countries that have snowy mountains run courses so make sure you hop on one to train and do refreshers frequently to make sure you are up on the latest techniques, equipment and resources.

Avalanche beacons

An avalanche beacon is probably the single most important piece of gear you can have with you. If you get stuck in an avalanche without a beacon and are buried your chances of survival are extremely low and if your riding partners are buried and you don’t have one, mounting a successful rescue is very unlikely.

These devices are simple and brilliant. They can essentially do two things… send and receive a signal. You pop it on under your outer layer before you enter avalanche terrain (any side or back country and in some resorts inbounds areas) and leave it switched on in transmitting mode all day. The beacon sends out a signal that can be received by all other avalanche beacons (the frequency is standardised). If you are buried in an avalanche the rescuers switch their beacons from transmit to receive and can then locate you even if you are completely buried by snow.

Modern beacons are really easy to use which is great because if you ever need one in anger it is an extremely stressful situation. When you turn a modern beacon on it will tell you how far you are from the person who is buried and in which direction you need to move towards them. Not all beacons are created equal but they essentially do exactly the same thing. A buried person can be found in minutes instead of hours which greatly improves survivability.

When an avalanche moves down a mountain it creates a lot of friction. This very slightly heats up the snow crystals and when it all comes to a stop it instantly re-freezes which makes it pretty well impossible to dig yourself out of an avalanche especially if you are completely submerged. To make matters worse because you breathe out warm moist air, it freezes onto the snow around your face and creates a seal from the oxygen in the snow around you. That is how people suffocate if buried in an avalanche even though there is loads of air in snow even after an avalanche. It is more or less like putting a plastic bag over your head. Depending on conditions it can take as little as 8 –10 minutes for this to happen so it really matters if you have an avalanche beacon on and are rescued quickly.

The Stats are a bit scary when it comes to burial time vs mortality… Studies done in Europe found that survival rates for people buried for just 30 minutes was as low as 35% (https://utahavalanchecenter.org/education/faq). Japan’s snowpack is a little different to Europe so the timing won’t be exactly the same but the underlying factors are equivalent so survival rates are similar. In other words finding a person caught in an avalanche in the shortest possible time is the key to the best outcome.

Which beacon is the beacon for you?

There are a number of factors that contribute to getting the right beacon for you and you should do as much research as possible. Often price will be a factor but the way we feel about it is get a slightly less expensive set of skis or board and buy the best beacon you can afford.

The beacon reviewing the best in 2021 is the Mammut Barryvox S. It has fantastic range and is excellent in multiple burial situations. The downside is that it is a bit more complex to use. It definitely suits professionals and people who practice regularly.

For resort riding where you are like to stay close to each other, the Pieps Micro BT Button is excellent. It is one of the smallest and best ultra light transceivers. It’s tiny, super lightweight and also really easy to use. The Pieps is a little more expensive than their bigger counterparts but they are so convenient they are our preference for side country and in resort riding at Madarao Mountain Resort. The only avalanche we have ever set off in Madarao was in the resort so we ride with beacons all day every day.

A side note for the Pieps beacons… We don’t recommend the sensor version of the Micro as in our tests we find that occasionally it doesn’t switch to transmit so if distracted or in a hurry you could think it was in transmit but you would still be in receive or error. Also there have been issues with the Pieps DSP so do not buy that model. See the article by Wild Snow for details.

A few key points — Don’t buy a second hand beacon. Buy new. Know where it has been. Your life depends on it. Always make sure batteries are at full charge every morning. Make sure you test the beacons when you first turn them on to ensure everyone in the group has a functional beacon. When you pass through the backcountry gate check everyone’s beacons again. Practice digging your beacons out of hidey holes regularly and if you have access to multiple beacons bury them all and find them all at once so you keep your skills fresh.

Shovel and Probe

Probe

A probe is an essential piece of kit because it can drastically reduce the time to find a buried person with a beacon and is pretty much the only way to find a buried person who doesn’t have a beacon. In Japan we always recommend the 3m ones because the snow fall is so huge that if a slope does slide there is a higher chance of deep burials. We love the Pieps Aluminium series. They are light, strong and very simple. A probe is very similar to a modern aluminium tent pole that is straight. They normally have an abrasion resistant nylon rope through the centre (or sometimes wire) that you pull through and lock into place to make it stiff.

Once you have located the closest point the beacon can detect, you then probe the snow to find exactly where the person is buried. Because of the way the beacon signal radiates if the burial is deep you could potentially think you are right above the person but you may actually be a meter or more away. You never want to spend time digging if you aren’t in exactly the right spot as it can significantly extend the time to recovery and could be the difference between serious injury and a successful rescue.

Probes are also used in snow pack analysis. They are a must have piece of kit that weigh almost nothing. Don’t leave home without it.

Shovel

Having a good strong lightweight shovel is critical to being able to dig out a friend who has been buried by an avalanche. Once you have found your friend under the snow it is imperative you get air to them as soon as possible and this means digging like a demon. The idea here is that no time is wasted to reduce the risk of injury from a lack of oxygen. Because an avalanche field sets hard it is pretty well impossible to dig someone out quickly without a shovel. People are shocked by how rock hard a powdery slope can become once it has avalanched. You won’t be able to dig it with your hands and with skis or a snowboard will be very slow going.

Our favourite shovel is the A-2 EXT Avalanche Shovel System With Saw. It is crazy strong, has a really nice sharp shovel blade and comes with a snow saw in the handle. Once you have done your avy course you will learn how to dig a snow pit and to do that it is much easier with a snow saw.

For resort and side country riding I love my Jones Excavator Carbon Shovel. It is ultralight. Seriously it weighs almost nothing. I take the beefier A-2 EXT on proper missions though because the risks are higher and without the extension handle digging is definitely slower going. Plus I need the saw anyway.

Backpack or Avalanche Airbag

Essentially you have two choices… A standard pack or one with an avalanche airbag. Whatever you do make sure the pack has an excellent harness so it is comfortable on the uphill missions. Carrying an uncomfortable pack is no fun. You definitely want one that doesn’t restrict your movement and you also probably want the smallest one you can get away with to save on weight. It is definitely more fun dropping lines with a light small pack than a beast strapped to your back but there are of course tradeoffs.

Avalanche airbag packs really do save lives so I always recommend them. The initial purchase price is high compared to a normal pack but it is the gift that keeps on giving. To my mind, especially if you spend multiple days in avalanche terrain it just doesn’t make sense riding without an avalanche pack.

There are two general types of avy pack which is really about how the system inflates the airbag… cartridge or electric.

Cartridge Packs

Cartridge systems are light and are cheaper to buy which is great but they have serious drawbacks, especially in Japan. Every time you deploy a cartridge pack it will cost you about ¥5,000 ($50 USD / $70 AUD) to refill the cartridge. The cost of this quickly adds up and means you are basically never going to practice with the pack making it much less likely you will get deployment right when you really need it. Unless you carry spare cartridges (which means you lose the weight advantage) you can’t re-use the pack once you have been in an avalanche so if another slope goes when you are on your way home you have no protection. Cartridge packs have another big drawback. You can’t take charged cartridges on airplanes. This is really annoying for travellers who want to get to overseas ski fields or travel domestically by plane. Finding a filling station is also nigh on impossible in many areas and will require long trips away from most ski resorts. For these reasons for Japan at least we don’t recommend cartridge packs at all.

Electric Packs

Electric systems are altogether more flexible, convenient and we believe safer because you can practice to your hearts content so when you do need to deploy the bag it will be second nature. There have been huge steps forward since the first iterations. There are advantages of both battery and capacitor power…

Battery Power

Black Diamond and Pieps burst into the avy pack market with the amazing ground breaking Jetforce series of packs. Basically a super powerful lithium ion battery was connected to a big fan that when deployed could inflate an airbag in around 5 seconds. The great thing about the battery powered Jetforce system is that the bag is automatically re-inflated intermittently while the avalanche is still in progress so that if the airbag is torn it would pretty well stay inflated. Yep that motor can keep a bag with a hole inflated. Amazing. The other great thing is that with the Jetforce system on just one charge you have up to four full deploy cycles so if you are caught in an avalanche you can still be safe when you are travelling home. Once you have exhausted all four charges if you were on a multi day trip and were really unlucky (or really bad at analysing the snowpack) you would be left unprotected.

There is one main drawback of the battery powered systems… they are pretty heavy. We spent a couple of seasons riding with these packs every day (even in resort) and they are fine but you do definitely notice the heft of the bag on your back. The weight of these systems is coming down significantly so they are definitely becoming more weight competitive than the first iterations.

Capacitor Power

Swiss company Alp-Ride released the capacitor powered avalanche pack which is the best thing since sliced bread for season 2019/20. A capacitor is sort of like a battery but it is designed to release all its power in one hit. This makes it a perfect tool to inflate an airbag. Capacitors are really small, really light and can be rapidly recharged. They also kind of never really wear out and can be recharged thousands of times without causing significant efficiency loss. Even though you don’t get the re-inflation during avalanche feature we far prefer the capacitor avy bag as an option. The whole kit is significantly lighter than a battery powered bag and the electrical component is far more durable. It leaves a lot more room in the pack for storage of gear and is operational at colder temperatures than lithium ion batteries.

The pack is better for multi day trips because it can be easily re-charged in the field where the Jetforce packs can’t. With just a couple of AA batteries or a little external battery pack these things can be recharged in the field in just 20–40 minutes so you have re-deploy options for travel out of the avalanche terrain.

Scott makes our favourite Alp-Ride bag although the Black Diamond one is excellent as well. There are three size options with the Scott packs… the Patrol E1 22L, Patrol E1 30L, Patrol E1 40L. We have them all. The 22 is perfect for resort cruising. Enough room for your shovel, probe and a snack and when you do go off piste in resort you have the comfort of knowing you have avy bag protection on your back. The only avalanche we set off last season was in the resort boundaries in the Ninja area at Madarao. It was about 30 meters wide and ran for about 100 meters. Luckily it was pretty shallow but any bigger than this and it could easily have injured a skier or boarder. We prefer the 40L to the 30L because it has a better harness system and once you are carrying a 30L pack it can easily be heavy enough to warrant the better harness. That said it is marginally heavier so we lashed out for the flexibility of the 30L pack as well.

The fantastic thing about the Scott system is that the airbag, capacitor and fan component is removable so you can buy one kit with the pack and electrics and the two other packs and have your cake and eat it too.

Gloves and Spare Gloves

You should really never think about going BC without two really good pairs of gloves. It is just one of those things (like goggles) that if something goes wrong you can’t be happy without a spare pair.

We have a few a really important criteria we judge all gloves by…

Must have a long cuff

There is no point in having waterproof toasty warm gloves that don’t have a long cuff. You will definitely get snow inside them which will melt and keep you cold when you are back country. When you dig an avalanche pit to check snow conditions you need to make sure your gear is up to scratch and that means gloves gotta be bomb proof.

Must be toasty warm

Japan temps normally hover between -1°C to -20°C. It gets cold enough that you definitely need nice warm gloves. We really like to have two options. Full five fingered gloves and a pair of 3 finger gloves.

Waterproof

This goes without saying. It is no fun having wet freezing hands. It is also dangerous if you end up with wet gloves and increases the risk of frostbite. Being in the back country isn’t like resort skiing. You can’t nip into a restaurant and dry your gloves and warm up your hands. Once your gloves are wet it is very hard to come back from that.

Glove care

Make sure you look after your gloves. For leather ones keep the leather greased with Nikwax or similar. It will extend the life of the gloves by years and will mean even the wettest days won’t make you sad. Be careful in the drying room. Don’t let them burn on the heater. It is a quick way to completely ruin them.

We love…

Burton [ak] Gore-tex Guide Glove. It is an excellent 5 fingered glove that meets all the criteria above. You can also wear an extra liner for those very chilly days. For our three fingered option we have been really happy with Hestra Leather Fall Line — 3 Finger gloves and much prefer the Hestra leather butter to Nikwax.

Outer Layers

For the last 3 years we have been riding Mont.Bell gear. A fantastic Japanese brand that makes excellent technical gear. Mont.Bell’s motto is “Function is beauty” and their designs hold true to that philosophy. Whether you use Mont.Bell or another brand’s outer shells here are the features we just can’t live without…

Jacket

There are a bunch of features we look for in a jacket.

It goes without saying the most important feature is that it just has to be waterproof but there is more than just the fabric and liners that have an effect on this. Without being waterproof you will get cold and cold is dangerous in the back country. The go-to tech is of course Gore-Tex but there are other membranes on the market that are challenging Gore. We haven’t used any of them so would be super interested to hear people’s thoughts in the comments below.

The next big thing that contributes to waterproof ness in super snowy places like Japan is a bit left field. It’s the powder skirt. Every turn you do in deep snow jets snow upwards and without a jacket with a pow skirt that snow goes right up inside. It doesn’t matter how waterproof the material is if snow gets into the inside of the jacket where it’s warm. It quickly melts and the you are wet wet wet. The powder skirt should have hooks or be sticky enough to stay below the top of your pants or bib (see below).

Bellows on the sleeves. There is nothing more annoying than struggling to get the sleeves over the top of the cuff of the glove. We definitely gravitate towards jackets that have big bellows that can be tightened over the glove. When in the BC you take gloves on and off a lot. It is really annoying if it’s hard to get the sleeves over the gloves. Also if the sleeve isn’t long enough snow can get up under the sleeve which will quickly turn to water so make sure they cover a good portion of the cuff of the glove.

An adjustable hood makes everything more comfortable. For starters we always wear a neck warmer. It is the best line of defence against snow going down the neck of the jacket. We love hoods that can be pulled back off the face and can rotate when you turn your head so your vision isn’t obstructed. A nice big peak is also great for keeping snow or even worse rain off the top of your goggles. The hood has to be big enough to fit over your helmet as well so it needs cinch straps to allow it to fit a helmeted and non helmeted head. Don’t buy a jacket without trying it on with a helmet first.

The pit zip is essential to staying cool. We look for waterproof zippers on our gear so we don’t end up getting we through the zipper. On those uphill ascents or when climbing you quickly get hot. If it is fine weather, being able to dump heat is crucial to staying dry. You don’t want to sweat so keeping cool enough is a bit of a balancing act. On the way up open up the pit zips, on the way down don’t forget to close them up again.

Well designed pockets are the often overlooked feature of outerwear. Never buy a jacket or pants for the back country without sealable pockets. Pockets are good at carrying things and when snow gets into them an open pocket becomes a great place to carry melted snow ie water. Eventually that water will get through to your inner layers or it will destroy something in your pocket that needs to stay dry. Pockets should be big enough to carry the things you need easy access to, have waterproof zippers and be in comfortable locations that aren’t obstructed by your back pack. Again don’t buy outer wear without trying on your back pack to make sure you keep easy access to the pockets.

Pants

A lot of the same things apply to pants as jackets. Waterprrof material, wide cuffs that easily go over your boots, water proof zippers, well placed sealable pockets. Here are the two additional features that make pants a perfect back country option…

Grab a bib and brace. They are just so much better keeping you dry when the snow is good. I never end up with wet undies with a bib and brace no matter how powdery the snow is. You also score extra storage for things like camera batteries that stay warm close to your skin. I know they are controversial but hipsters aside they are just better.

Full length waterproof leg zippers that can be opened from both the top and the bottom are critical for two reasons. The first is so on the up you can open the pants and dump heat stopping you getting sweaty and then cold. The second and more important reason is so that if you are in a bad accident that injures your leg the pants can easily be opened up to inspect the injured area without adding more trauma by having to move your leg. This can make the difference between a moderate and severe injury and if you have to cut your pants then you are much more likely to get cold as they can’t be done back up easily.

Bits and pieces

snacks, warm clothes for when you stop moving, water, spare gloves, spare goggles and other extra bits dependent on how far from the resort boundaries you are going.

It’s nice to be comfortable, well fed and well hydrated so don’t forget to bring the little tid bits. Remember you burn loads of energy staying warm and climbing mountains. Bring food that is low GI so you don’t burn through it rapidly. Make it yummy. No need to eat rubbish.

The wrap up

Get out there into the wilderness. It is an amazing way to enrich your snowy experience and once you start you won’t be able to stop. With a little knowledge and some gear a world of terrain and beauty opens up. In Japan you can climb into volcanoes, through untracked tree’d glades and down open powder-bowls that look like a white canvas for you to snake down.

There is less rush and race out in the back country and that leads to more of a zen like approach to riding which is incredibly satisfying. You always feel like you have shared something special with those on your mission and sitting in front of the fire telling stories about the day is even better when you know you have done something very few other people have been lucky enough to do.