expert picks
Splitboarding Kit
Willing to earn your turns? Here’s the gear you’ll need.
If you’re a dedicated rider who wants to take your snowboarding out of bounds, you’ll need a new setup. This kit is built with high-performance splitboarding gear that will help you travel efficiently on the uphill, rip your line, and take another lap (because it was just that good). Hard-charging shredders and mellow meadow-surfers alike will appreciate these products—there’s something in here for everyone.
Jones Solution Splitboard ($1,050)
Ride Insano ($490)
Spark R&D Arc ST Pro ($619)
Spark R&D Canted Pucks ($80)
Pomoca Splitboard Pro ($310)
Black Diamond Expedition 3 ($140)
Patagonia PowSlayer ($799)
Patagonia PowSlayer ($649)
Patagonia Nano-Air Hoody ($329)
Ridge Merino Pursuit Ultralight Hoodie ($100)
Smith Summit MIPS ($260)
Julbo Edge ($265)
Black Diamond Cirque Gloves ($110)
Smartwool Intraknit Snowboard OTC ($35)
Osprey Soelden 32 ($190)
Mammut Barryvox ($325)The Solution offers exactly what its name implies, no matter the snow conditions. This versatile splitboard provides bomber edge hold on bulletproof hardpack, excellent stability at speed, and respectable float in soft snow—it’s easy to see why it’s our daily driver.
Even playful backcountry riders will benefit from a stiff splitboarding boot, which provides confidence for sidehilling, technical riding, and cramponing. The Insano (women’s Cadence) is Ride’s stiffest model, offering high responsiveness and excellent adjustability.
Spark is a big name in the splitboarding world, and its Arc ST might be the most-loved splitboard binding on the market. The Arc ST Pro ups the game by cutting a few ounces for a light-on-your-feet feel. Plus, the binding-to-board interface is as seamless as it gets.
Canted pucks decrease strain by placing your knees in better alignment with your ankles than traditional pucks. Plus, if you ever decide to swap your soft boots for a hard boot setup, you can continue to use these pucks with Spark’s Dyno DH bindings.
These skins are a match made in heaven for the Solution splitboard, thanks to their low-profile design. The Pros are seriously lightweight and offer excellent glide, but unfortunately, they lack the durability of beefier skins on the market.
Poles can be a weak point in your kit, but the Expedition 3 has stood the test of time. Unlike Z-style poles, it’s less prone to breaking while you’re out on a long tour, and while not particularly light, it’s dependable as can be.
The PowSlayer offers 3-layer Gore-Tex protection from the elements in a sleek package. This full-featured touring jacket should be a serious contender for the seasoned rider in search of a dependable and relatively lightweight backcountry shell.
Weather Protection
Warmth
Comfort
Breathability
Durability
Sustainability
The PowSlayer Pant is made for long days in the skin track. We think it’s an excellent choice for the splitboarder seeking waterproof pants with a mobile touring cut and a low-profile design, but we’d opt for a more breathable pair on warm days.
Weather Protection
Warmth
Comfort
Breathability
Durability
Sustainability
This cozy midlayer adds the perfect balance of warmth and breathability for uphill travel in cold weather, followed by whoop-worthy descents. For frigid conditions or an emergency layer, though, we’d opt for an ultralight down jacket instead.
This lightweight, merino wool sun hoodie makes for an excellent splitboarding base layer thanks to its slim fit and thermoregulating properties. We wear it on sunny powder days, volcano skiing missions, and everything in between, thanks to its exceptional comfort.
This airy helmet is certified for both snowboarding and mountaineering, but offers more features (like MIPS and Koroyd crumple zones) than true ultralight mountaineering helmets. We love the Summit for days when shaving grams matters, but safety is still paramount.
Comfort
Warmth
Ventilation
Weight & Bulk
Durability
Sustainability
Julbo’s photochromic technology is some of the best on the market, and its 0-3 Reactiv lens is our preferred pick for touring days that start early and end late. The Edge’s frame also lands on the larger side, offering decent eye protection if you choose to wear it while riding.
Deciding between gloves and mittens? The Cirque offers the best of both worlds, thanks to its packable, insulated wind hood. It occupies a middle ground between true liners and beefier downhill gloves, making it a great option for touring.
The Intraknit Snowboard Over the Calf socks offer a good balance of warmth, breathability, and durability that will withstand the rigors of uphill and downhill travel. Plus, you get merino’s moisture-wicking and odor-reducing properties.
The Soelden (women’s Sopris) has held a treasured place in the minds—and gear closets—of backcountry enthusiasts for years. It offers plenty of helpful features, as well as an excellent fit for most riders, and we love that it comes in 25-, 32-, and 45-liter models.
Comfort & Support
Organization
Versatility
Durability
Weight
Sustainability
The Barryvox is a dependable beacon that most backcountry users will love. It's just as at home in professional-level guiding courses as it is on a typical day on the skin track, thanks to its intuitive design and excellent range.
How We Built the Splitboarding Kit
Splitboarding is all about making the most of your time in the mountains. We built this kit with both uphill and downhill performance in mind, because we don’t like to make compromises when it comes to skinning or riding—after all, every moment in the backcountry is precious. Luckily, with top-of-the-line modern splitboarding gear, there’s no need to choose. There are a ton of great gear choices on the market these days, which allows us to pick stiff, light, and dependable hardware that will help you sidehill and climb with ease, all while holding an edge on steeps, cutting through chunder, and floating in powder when it’s time to rip your line.
When it came to apparel and accessories, we wanted to balance breathability, weight, performance, and durability. Because 90% of your day is spent in the skin track, we chose layers that offer excellent performance without swamping you out or weighing you down. Still, because we hope you’re spending some time in the white room (and because it’s tough to transition from split to ride mode in deep snow without getting all up in it), our picks will keep you protected from the elements all day.
Splitboard
When selecting a splitboard, we opted for a versatile board that we love to ride in almost any conditions, since you never know what you’re going to get when riding in the backcountry. The Jones Solution is our go-to splitboard for everything from multi-day traverses to pre-work dawn patrols. It’s stiff and dependable, offering bomber edge hold on firm, slick slopes, all while providing respectable float in powder. The Solution thrives on steeps thanks to its underfoot camber, stiff flex profile, and long sidecut radius, making for a confidence-inspiring, stable ride. We also think it’s one of the best boards on the market for uphill travel: Its relatively narrow waist width and stiff flex help you hold it together on slick sidehills better than many boards on the market.
The Jones Solution Split also lands on the lighter end of the splitboard market. Still, those who want to go even lighter and ride a 158 or above can opt for the carbon fiber and fiberglass ultralight version (which we hope Jones makes available in smaller sizes in the future). All told, if you’re an advanced rider seeking a one-board quiver to keep you psyched in the best and worst conditions, the Solution is our top choice.
However, the Solution is not our go-to board for seriously deep pow days—for those, we recommend a wider board with a more rockered nose and directional shape, like the Weston Japow Splitboard. And some riders may prefer a slightly more flexible board with a shorter sidecut radius for a more nimble feel in tight trees, like the Jones Stratos Splitboard. The Solution is a versatile model that can handle just about anything you throw at it, but it’s a better choice for splitboarders getting into big terrain than quick, low-angle backyard laps.
Skins
To go uphill on your board, you’ll need skins. Although Jones offers pre-cut skins (like the Nomad Pro Splitboard Skins), we’re huge fans of Pomoca’s Splitboard Pros, which are among the lightest and most packable on the market. You’ll have to cut them yourself (or bring them to your local board tech), but we love that they also offer excellent glide and pack down small. It’s worth noting that this glide comes at the expense of grip—if you’re not used to moving in a skin track, a glide-y skin might make slips and falls more common. But the Pomoca Splitboard Pro remains our top pick for efficient travel in the mountains, thanks to its smooth, easy-striding feel on long, flat approaches.
Unfortunately, it's far from the most durable option out there: We’ve ripped through the stitching on several pairs, and after a 70-day season, we usually need to re-glue them. If weight savings and glide are priorities, we think the Splitboard Pro is a great bet. Opting for a pair of pre-cut skins like the Nomad Pro, though, will save you some hassle and ensure a good fit on your board.
Splitboarding Boots
For splitboarding, most riders opt for soft boots (i.e., regular snowboarding boots) with a stiff flex rather than specialized backcountry hard boots, which are akin to ski boots. In this kit, we chose the Ride Insano (women’s Cadence), which offers responsiveness and excellent adjustability thanks to a dual Boa system that allows you to adjust the cuff and foot independently. The Insano gives you exceptional control while maintaining a surfy feel, making it one of the best soft boots for riding steep terrain. Plus, its stiff flex provides respectable uphill performance, offering excellent ankle support when you’re sidehilling. When you’re booting without crampons, the Insano offers decent traction; unfortunately, it lacks a heel welt, so you’ll need to opt for universal crampons (like the Grivel G10 Wide) if you decide to venture into terrain that warrants pulling out the sharps.
If the Insano doesn’t fit your foot, it's worth considering options like the Burton Ion Boa (women’s Supreme Boa) and Burton Photon (women’s Felix). There are other splitboarding-specific boots on the market (like the ThirtyTwo TM-2 Jones), but many backcountry-specific options are bulky and heavy, which is a significant drawback in the skin track.
What About Hard Boots?
For dedicated splitboard mountaineers and riders who prefer a stiffer flex than soft boots can provide, we’ll point you in a more niche direction: hard boots. Hard boots are modified ski boots that can be used for backcountry snowboarding (paired with hard-boot-specific bindings, now offered by multiple snowboarding brands). Many hard boot riders opt to modify a pair of Atomic Backland Sport boots with a Phantom Link Lever (which adds toe-to-heel flex for a better ride). Still, there are stock hard-boot options, like the Key Equipment Disruptive, which comes ready to use out of the box.
Why make the switch from soft boots to hard boots? After years of blowing through a pair of soft boots in a single season and fiddling with universal crampons, you might want footwear that can deliver better performance in big terrain. You also might want to go lighter—you can shave serious ounces off your setup by switching to hard boots. If you often find yourself in steep, firm snow, hard boots offer better responsiveness than nearly any soft boot on the market. When it comes to the uphill, they offer automatic crampon compatibility for a more secure feel while booting and better sidehilling capabilities than soft boots.
Although buying a hard-boot setup is usually more expensive than a soft-boot setup, we think the added durability and efficiency are worth the price for the hard-charging rider looking for a bump in performance. Still, the hard-boot experience isn’t for everyone: Many boarders prefer the surfier feeling of a stiff soft boot while riding.
Splitboarding Bindings
A great binding is an essential component of your splitboarding kit, and it’s worth carefully considering which one best meets your needs. Splitboard bindings undergo serious thrashing in the backcountry: stomping cliffs, steep sidehilling, and thwacking off ice put significant stress on both their straps and baseplates. Because your binding adds considerable weight to your setup, many riders prefer a lightweight option like the Spark R&D Arc ST Pro, our pick for this kit. It’s similar to the classic Arc ST, but features aluminum hardware and a carbon-reinforced nylon highback to lighten the load. The ST Pro also has Spark’s seamless binding-to-board interface to help make your transition quick and simple.
Larger riders (and anyone who is especially hard on their gear) may want to consider Spark’s Surge ST Pro instead. It's a bit heavier, but it offers significantly better durability than the Arc model, thanks to its solid baseplate. Regardless of which binding you choose, we recommend pairing it with a pair of Spark’s Canted Pucks, which feature 3-degree canting to reduce strain on your knees while riding. (You can even buy Spark bindings and pucks as a bundle.) Plus, the pucks are compatible with hard boot bindings, making them a versatile choice if you decide to make the switch.
For those who decide to go the hard-boot route, there are two bindings that most riders use: Spark’s Dyno DH and Phantom Snow’s M6 binding. After three seasons of splitboarding and in-bounds riding on the Dyno DH, we think it offers a responsive feel and an easy-to-use board-to-binding interface, at a much lighter weight than soft-boot splitboard bindings. While skinning, we store it on the outside of our pack and pop it onto our board for the descent.
The downside? The Dyno DH tends to dent the front of our hard boots, so the toe bail and heel cup need tightening over time to avoid unintentional release. It’s also essential to clear snow from your boot and binding before strapping in; any buildup can disrupt the otherwise secure fit, leading to an unintentional release. This issue aside, we think the Dyno DH is a good binding for the dedicated rider. Other boarders prefer the M6, which has a more direct board-to-binding interface than the Dyno DH, which uses a traditional puck system. They say the M6 offers a better board feel, but we’ve yet to try it to confirm.
Collapsible Poles
You won’t get very deep into the backcountry without a pair of poles. Unlike ski poles, splitboarding poles are often strapped to the outside of your pack on the downhill. For this reason, many riders prefer lightweight poles to avoid adding extra weight to their backs while shredding. Your splitboarding poles still need to be sturdy enough to push yourself up the skin track and across flats in board mode, though—plus, we often use them to whack ice and snow off of our equipment.
We’ll admit that we are notorious pole breakers, so our top choice is the not-so-light but nearly indestructible Black Diamond Expedition 3, which features a classic (and bombproof) three-part telescoping design and a long foam handle for comfort in the skin track. It’s aluminum, not carbon, which is good for durability, but it also means that the Expedition is heavier than other options on the market. The pole packs down easily and compactly, and we’ve never struggled with it icing up at the top of our run. We have yet to break a segment or a Flicklock, but thanks to the Expedition’s telescoping design, it’s simple to replace parts if something does go awry.
An avalanche rescue kit (including a beacon, shovel, and probe) is an essential component of your splitboarding loadout. We love the Mammut Barryvox, an intuitive, easy-to-use beacon with excellent range. It offers high accuracy and a sleek and simple interface, featuring all the search capabilities you need and nothing you don’t. Plus, it has a handy group-check mode that we use nearly every time we go touring. The Barryvox has accompanied us for quick dawn patrols, guiding courses, and everything in between.
You’ll also need a shovel and a probe. We have been using the Mammut Alugator Pro Light shovel for the past several years and remain big fans. It’s lightweight (though not the lightest on the market), packable, easy to assemble, and comfortable to shovel with. For probes, we usually bring a Mammut Probe 280 Speed Lock on typical tours, since it is fairly light for its length and easy to deploy. Its numerical markings come in 10-centimeter increments, but the dashed depth indicators wear off over time, making it a mediocre option for frequently identifying and documenting weak layers in the snowpack.
That probe works pretty well for rescue scenarios, but we prefer the Backcountry Access Stealth 300 for pit work. It’s a bit heavier but has a sturdier feel and more frequent depth markings. Note that you should select a probe with a length that is appropriate for the snowpack you typically ride: A 240-centimeter probe is often too short for the deep maritime snowpack in the Cascades, but could be adequate in a continental Colorado snowpack.
We always wear a helmet when riding in the backcountry to protect our heads—you’re even further from rescue than in a resort if something goes wrong. (We also wear our helmets when climbing couloirs to protect against falling rocks.) If you’re searching for a lightweight model with excellent ventilation and a low-profile fit, the Smith Summit MIPS is a great option. For midwinter powder freeriding, we often choose our comfier and burlier Smith Vantage 2 MIPS, which has a weight penalty but offers adjustable vents and a cozy feel, thanks to integrated ear pads; any dependable resort helmet would also do just fine. Still, to shave some ounces, we think the Summit MIPS is a great option for a dedicated, well-rounded backcountry lid.
Your backpack’s fit, feature set, and capacity will vary depending on your body shape, what you carry on a typical tour, and the terrain you’re exploring. When searching for a pack, we look for one that has both a snowboard carry and an A-frame carry, an external helmet attachment, a dedicated avalanche gear pocket, and an ice tool carry. There are only a handful of splitboard-specific models on the market, so we often look to ski packs with the above features. Note that many ski packs don’t have a board-mode carry, and the A-frame carry webbing is often too snug for a larger snowboard in split mode—watch out for these common issues when selecting one.
For most tours, we think that the Osprey Soelden (women’s Sopris) is a great choice for splitboarders. It lands in the middle of the weight spectrum, but it offers a comfortable fit, plus all the features you need: backpanel access, an avalanche gear pocket, a stow-away helmet carry, board- and A-frame carry, and an ice tool carry. The 32-liter Soelden is plenty for a typical day out, but on missions when you’re bringing all the layers, sharps, and snow-study gear, we think the 45-liter is a better bet. We’ll also note that Osprey’s women’s snow packs offer an excellent fit for small splitboarders; we have yet to find any pack that fits small women as well as this one.
Because the majority of your time in the backcountry is spent in the skin track, it’s essential to choose layers that help you thermoregulate while cranking uphill but also provide good warmth and protection while transitioning and riding. Conditions in the mountains change by the day (and often by the hour), so for long splitboarding missions, we like to bring versatile layers that keep us comfortable as temperatures swing. Staying dry is an essential part of the comfort (and safety) equation, so we chose moisture-wicking base layers, a warm, synthetic midlayer, and waterproof outerwear.
For outerwear, we chose the Patagonia PowSlayer Pants and Jacket. They both feature 3-layer Gore-Tex Pro fabric to keep the elements out in a relatively lightweight package. Can you go lighter and more breathable? Absolutely. But when we’re taking laps and spending part of our days in the white room, we prefer to go a little bit burlier on the waterproofing front. Plus, as a backcountry snowboarder, you’re likely to spend more time on the snow than your skier friends. All in all, we think this set offers a good balance of waterproofing and breathability, with several backcountry-specific features, like an inner ankle scuff guard (to avoid crampon holes) and massive chest pockets for storing your skins.
Because the majority of your time in the backcountry is spent in the skin track, it’s essential to choose layers that help you thermoregulate while cranking uphill, but that also offer good warmth and protection while transitioning and riding.
Layering for the backcountry can be difficult, but our go-to midlayer pick is the Patagonia Nano-Air Hoody, which offers enough insulation to stay warm on a chilly alpine start but enough breathability to ascend quickly. In seriously cold weather (or when we pack an insulating layer for emergencies only), we’d choose an ultralight, 800-fill down jacket like the Himali Accelerator instead. But the Nano-Air is a much better choice if you plan to wear your insulating layer while skinning or for cold riding, thanks to its better breathability.
Because we’re working so hard in the skin track, we often skin in just a sun hoodie (even when the temperatures dip below 20). We’re obsessed with Ridge Merino’s Pursuit, which offers thermoregulating merino wool, a performance fit, and an ultra-cozy feel. Some find merino wool a bit warm for uphill pursuits, but we love this layer anytime we experience significant temperature swings, which are common while splitboarding: think hammering up the hot bootpack, then transitioning through ridgetop winds. Note that the Pursuit’s hood is tight—if that’s a deal-breaker for you, we recommend checking out Ridge Merino's Solstice Pro sun hoodie instead, which has a much less constrictive fit.
Soggy and frozen hands will ruin a great day in the backcountry. We usually bring two pairs with us, but if you’re looking for a two-in-one wonder, look no further than the Black Diamond Cirque Glove. It’s a liner glove with a wind mitt featuring 40-gram PrimaLoft insulation to give you maximum thermoregulation ability: keep the gloves in liner mode during your ascent and transition, and pop the wind mitt over your hands for downhill riding and cold ridgeline traverses. We think it’s a great choice if you’re searching for a dedicated splitboarding glove.
Is the Splitboarding Kit for You?
If your idea of a good time is a long day on the skin track in search of untracked snow, look no further than the Splitboarding Kit. It’s built for advanced riders seeking performance touring gear for just about any backcountry mission. If you primarily ride in-bounds, check out our Advanced Snowboard Kit, which outlines the best gear for resort days. If you’re looking to save some cash, check out our Intermediate Snowboard Kit, which details great, midrange gear for in-bounds riding.
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