ON A MISSION FOR THE PERFECT SKI TOURING BACKPACK
What started out as a simple shopping quest to find a new ski touring backpack turned into a mission to find ANY backpack for ski touring designed specifically for women.
When it comes to skis, I’m all for equality as in not believing that women need specific designs and pretty topsheets. It’s why I ride DPS Pagoda 106s, which only differ in lengths rather than gender.
But the thing about backpacks is that they need to fit women’s bodies, which are normally shorter and slighter than the average man’s. I have ridden wearing backpacks borrowed from men with the base of the pack below my bum and the top riding up around my ears.
So there must be a good choice of women’s ski touring backpacks on the market, right? Wrong. What started out as a simple shopping trip to ski shops and online to find a new ski touring backpack turned into a mission to find ANY backpack that was designed for ski touring and specifically for women.
First of all, let’s talk ski touring backpacks as opposed to ski or mountaineering backpacks. For ski touring the backpack needs to be as light as possible so it doesn’t weigh you down when climbing, but also roomy enough to take layers, including an outerwear jacket or puffer on the way up, skins on the way down, plus spare gloves, water bottle, snack – and, of course, skis should you need to bootpack rather than climb on skins.
So that cuts out all the backpacks that are super bulky, heavy and have no ski carrying system.
If you ask in the ski shop or click ‘women’ to define your search online, the choice becomes alarmingly limited. Don’t even start thinking about colour, you get just what is on offer.
My quest took me all over the internet with some frustrating results such as on the Gregory site. Now Gregory from Salt Lake City, Utah, ‘with 40 years experience in backpack design’ are well known in the backcountry ski world for their hardwearing backpacks and, whoopee, they make women’s specific ones. So I clicked on the images of the Alpinisto, Targhee FT 24 and 25 and up popped pics of men wearing the backpacks (image below).
OK so the descriptions explain that they are unisex and they come in different sizes but why not show them on women? Can’t say that I’m gagging to buy the long and hefty-looking Alpinisto 35, as shown on the guy above.
Finally, I found what I was looking for on the Dynafit website, the well-designed, functional women’s ski touring Radical 30+ backpack. But wait, it looks exactly the same as the men’s.
So what was the difference? Even the online expert ‘mountain guru from the chat community’ couldn’t tell me and had quite a rant about the lack of measurements on the Dynafit descriptions, so at least he wasn’t an AI mountain guru from the Chatgpt community!
I ordered the Radical women’s backpack anyway on the basis that I could always return it and, hurrah, it is shorter than the men’s, with back measurement a women-friendly 47cms, perfect for me (I’m 168cms tall with average back length).
This backpack is 30L and superlight at 1020g with ski carrying straps, padded back entrance zip and great storage including a stow main area that has a fold over top and extra pockets – I actually thought I’d lost my skins when I returned from a ski tour but found them in a secret stash compartment! Only problem is family members are now giving me there extras as they know I can fit them in.
I have one gripe. If Dynafit could sort the buckles out – ie replace the cheap looking plastic ones with something a whole lot sturdier to go with the technical profile then it would be the perfect women’s ski touring backpack.
NB. For avalanche risk ski tours I originally had a SCOTT Alpride avy bag that was way too long for my back. I now have the shorter 30L Alpride version, which is one of the best avalanche bags on the market.
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