What to carry in a backpack for a day's off-piste skiing

A snowHead

James Bedding of the Telegraph is on a ski instructor training course with Warren Smith Ski Academy. That's included a day with Peter Mason, a ski guide in St Gervais.

These are Peter's tips for what to stick in a backpack for a day's backcountry skiing:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/snowandski/gap-year-ski-instructor/7052037/The-40-something-ski-bum-blog-three.html

Anything to add, or subtract? Err ... avalanche cord?

A snowHead

Mobile phone

I'd think very carefully about aspirin, paracetamol could be better (no thinning of the blood), but you have to make a point of offering it to the victim as opposed to giving it to them, for liability's sake etc

Climbing sling with a couple of screwgate crabs, never know when it may be useful. If on a glacier a proper rope too.

If you're spending the whole day a considerable way off the slopes, I'd say a group shelter will be better than a space blanket. A space blanket won't heat you up unless you already have enough heat to radiate out, with a group shelter you can pile everyone in, either to keep people out the wind or whatver, or to share bodyheat if someone is hypothermic.

Again, if you're a significant way from the pistes, you should really have a map/compass, unless you really know the area well.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

A bivvy bag and CPR barriers are pretty useful in an aid kit.

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Safety gear appropriate to where you are going of course. Rocky Road chocolate bars are light and pack quite a punch when you need them!

A good sharp climbing knife is very handy. Compass. Map etc. Inclinometer is useful if you know what you're doing - or just want to realize that that knarly slope was really only 30 degrees..

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

I'd add a ratchet-based screw-driver - most components in a leatherman are easily good enough (and the knife on mine is sharp enough to slice off part of my thumb, so that's enough for me), but the screw-driver components aren't typically powerful enough to handle binding screws.

I also have some climbing tat (~4.5 mm diameter) which gives more options for fixing stuff that just duct tape (which I also take)

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The stuff on the list. Skins and Harscheisen if any chance of going uphill. Spare contact lenses. Thin fleece gloves. Whistle. A few cable ties and some gaffer on the inside surface.

Most importantly. a few Twixs snowHead

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

Mobile phone but more importantly always with the number of piste patrol/rescue for whatever resort I go to.

After all it is free

Oh and my travel insurance docs as well...

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

Sloe gin

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

Little fire steel.... if I get lost I can always ski down to the tree line and start a fire to keep warm.

snow reports

At the risk of coming in for some flak, here's my packing list for touring.
Cut down some of the clothes, food and all the hut stuff and you've got it for a day trip.

altis, you weighed your credit cards?

nice one!

You know it makes sense.

*Always* pack bog roll. Never know when the 'turtles head' might show up.
And its a real pain to not having anything to wipe yer @rse with!

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

clarky999,

A snowHead

jwhiteley1, Aspirin does have effects on platelet-aggregation and might reduce blood clotting, but it is easy to overstate this effect. Paracetamol may help reduce a fever, but will not drop a normal temperature significantly. I usually take rather stronger painkillers with me just in case. And some antidiarrhoea drugs.

A snowHead

I have a couple of 500mg paracetamol/30mg codine in my first aid kit. Strongest I can get this side of legal, all the oxycontin are gone Laughing

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Yeah I know what you're saying - personally I never carry aspirin as I'm very allergic to it. I take co-codamol for myself, but if anyone else in the group (ie friends, I'm not a guide, and not a highly qualified enough instructor to take people off psite) needs a painkiller I would rather just offer them paracetamol, it seems less complicated, and less of a potential legal problem if the worst happens. Also, although I have a first aid certificate, I'm not a trained medic, so any of the more complex issues are beyond me anyway.

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stoatsbrother, thanks i didn't think paracetamol would have too much of an effect.

Scarpa, Yeah my gf lives off co-codamol 1/4 of the time Going green

gotta love the opiates

clarky999, fair point about the legal side i suppose, I hope when you found out you were allergic it wasn't too dramatic!

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

No, it was my Dad who made the discovery when he was younger - he used to take it to get out of school lol, then when he got older it started to have more of an effect, and when someone else gave him some (or something of the same type/ingredients) he nearly dided. I've been told that I would likely suffer similar effects, but want to avoid testing it!

So far I've never ahd to deal with anything legal like that with skiing, but I've had a few sticky situations when kayaking (I'm a whitewater kayaker, and teach it to a higher level than I do skiing). Most kayaking takes place in fairly remote areas so we always have to be self sufficient, and things like legal liability are drummed into us at coaching courses. Seems logical to apply the same principles to skiing.

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What to carry in a backpack for a day's off-piste skiing

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