Safety Tools You Need For FreeRide: Level 2 – ExploreWhether you want to stomp the steeps or experience the mountains away from the crowds, FreeRide is your ticket, but it comes at a price – you need the appropriate equipment.
In this series, we step through the safety tools you’ll need to take on increasingly consequential FreeRide adventures. We’ve broken these into 4 levels – Access / Explore / Deep / Sensei – each article builds on the knowledge from the previous one.
In this article we focus on FreeRide in unpatrolled terrain, for example close to pistes or resort boundaries, where help is within reach but not necessarily on tap.
Wherever or whenever you ride, we urge you to invest in the FreeRide Essentials and follow Lore #06: No TSP, No Party.
Transceiver: Turn it on when you put it on and turn it off when you take it off. Don’t worry about conserving battery life. Make sure it’s closely strapped to your upper body using the supplied harness and under at least one layer of clothing. TIP: To ensure you have the best signal transmission, keep your transceiver at least 20 cm away from electrical or metal items — including foil food and drink wrappers.
Backpack: You’ll want to size this according to the volume of gear you need to carry. Whatever size of pack you use, it’s important to have sturdy adjustable chest and wide hip straps. Ensuring a good / snug fit will not only help transfer weight across your torso and onto your hips, allowing for greater carrying comfort, but will also reduce the likelihood of losing your pack if you’re caught in a slide. TIP: Some brands offer packs with a female specific fit, these are definitely worth checking out if you’re a female rider planning on carrying more than just the FreeRide Essentials.
Shovel: These come in 2 parts: the shovel / detachable handle, this is so you can easily stow them in your backpack. Assembly is quick and easy, generally it’s just a button press away. Shovels come in many sizes so you’re gonna wanna check what you plan to buy fits in your backpack. TIP: You can buy super light shovels with plastic blades but these are designed for competitive skimo racing, not cutting through debris of a wet snow avalanche. Make good choices people!
Probe: These are collapsable poles built from aluminium or carbon and come in 40 cm sections with a string or cable running through the centre that pulls them together when tensioned. TIP: There’s no standard size but you probably want something 2.5 metres or longer.
Avalanche Skills: Before venturing into unpatrolled terrain it’s important to understand the avalanche danger scale, be able to recognise avalanche terrain, know how to travel safely and interpret the avalanche bulletin / weather report. TIP: We all suffer from skills fade. Taking a few hours to refresh your knowledge at the start of the season seems like a great investment in your safety.
Venturing further afield and wanna know more? Check out the next article in this series.
You may also wanna checkout our adventure checklists, read them online or print them out and stick them up somewhere.
What else do you carry and in what scenarios? Wanna add to this topic – let us know in the comments below or get more involved here.
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