Backcountry Tour Planning Webinar & Trip Planning Tools

Backcountry Tour Planning Webinar & Trip Planning Tools

When conditions are prime for winter backcountry adventure, it’s easy to get caught up in the stoke and overlook essential pre-trip preparation in a rush to get on the skin track. In this webinar, guide and backcountry powder chaser, Elias Zane Holt, lays out how to plan a successful and safe trip into the mountains, with insider advice on digital mapping tools, gear selection, and other tools to help you style your next trip.

Here are some helpful links to trip planning resources that Elias mentioned during the webinar:

Online Message Boards + Trip Reports

Mapping + Tour Planning Apps 

  • Gaia GPS – Mapping app with slope angle shading, topo, satellite layering, and even snow depth and avalanche forecast overlays.
  • CalTopo – Mapping app that is great for pre-planning/plotting trips in advance with lots of functional layers like slope angle shading as well.
  • OnX Backcountry – Mapping app that comes with many backcountry tours already pre-loaded!
  • Guide Pace – Time planning for the mountains.

Guidebooks:

Weather Resources:

  • Windy – Weather radar, wind and waves forecast.
  • NOAA – Check out the point forecast feature.
  • Wunderground – Local & long-range weather forecasts, weather reports, maps & tropical weather conditions for locations worldwide.
  • Mountain Weather Lite – A selection of the most commonly used weather maps & forecast tools, all on one page.
  • WA Local Weather Station – Mountain weather forecast for WA.

Avalanche Education:

  • AIARE Level 1 – This comprehensive 24-hour course introduces students to the necessary decision-making tools for managing risk while traveling in avalanche terrain. It is designed for all individuals recreating on snow in the mountains whether skiing, split-boarding, snowshoeing, climbing, or mountaineering.
  • Know Before You Go – The program introduces you to avalanche safety with some simple steps you can take to stay safe and have fun in avalanche terrain.
  • Avalanche.org – Connects the public to formal avalanche information and education in the United States.  Find the avalanche encyclopedia here!

Don’t Forget to Check Driving Conditions! 

Intro to Backcountry Touring BLOG

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  • The Importance of Avalanche Education

    Submission by Trevor Husted  The memory is vivid, it started with a hollow thump that turned into a heavy roar. The sound dissipated as quickly as it started and when our group of backcountry splitboarders arrived at the ridge we looked over to the next slope and saw that the whole slope of snow had […]

  • Backcountry Tour Planning Webinar & Trip Planning Tools

    When conditions are prime for winter backcountry adventure, it’s easy to get caught up in the stoke and overlook essential pre-trip preparation in a rush to get on the skin track. In this webinar, guide and backcountry powder chaser, Elias Zane Holt, lays out how to plan a successful and safe trip into the mountains, […]

Partners & Accreditations

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