Using the Vivid Pack Avalanche Tools Pocket

Why We Started with the Rescue Pocket

Vivid Avalanche Tools Pocket Background:

Mike and I began our backcountry skiing journey when we were about 15 years old. We had a telephone number (land-line!) for the Utah Avalanche Center’s morning forecast, Snow Sense–the best avalanche education book available, and avalanche rescue shovels. I had an old Wenzel backpack which I used for backcountry skiing, backpacking, and traveling. I was constantly modifying it to carry my shovel, skies, anything. Options for gear were as thin as our knowledge of snowpack!

Decades later, after backcountry skiing around the world, numerous avy course...suffice it to say; we’ve learned some lessons. One key takeaway from over 30 years in the backcountry, is that my backcountry gear are safety devices–nothing more. Skis, socks, backpacks, all serve to get me home safely. In some cases, if gear fails, so may the skier. Patrollers and rescuers have related stories about gear failing; a zipper to access a beacon fails, a pack has straps to interfere with probe pole access, anything can go wrong in a rescue scenario.

During one class with the American Avalanche Institute we had a large area of compacted snow for timed-rescue drills. Students racing against seconds to find the dummy from beacon searching to probing. Seconds seemed like minutes. I remember feeling the tension yet grateful that I knew my gear; I had practiced, accessing my probe was intuitive, second nature. Others struggled to open their safety tools pockets, struggling against time to reach life-saving gear.

Our Design Approach to Safety First

It was clear to me; packs are as much of a safety tool as the probe itself. If a zipper fails, or a buckle is iced, that impacts the anxiety and adds seconds to a short clock. So how do I design around this experience? Our answer is the Vivid ski pack.

The Rescue Pocket Came First

I started with the rescue pocket; I wanted a straight zipper–the easiest motion to use intuitively. I wanted the strongest zipper I could find so we employed the YKK ELA zipper designed specifically for increased abrasion resistance and burst strength. Open the zipper and your probe is the first tool available. We made the pocket large to make accessing safety tools as easy as possible. THEN we designed the rest of the pack.

Packing the Pingora Vivid Backcountry Rescue Pocket

To make rescue as smooth as possible, I have some tips, born from experience, advice, and a desire for everyone to return home.

• Make your probe pole the most easily accessible rescue tool–this is the first tool you need in a rescue scenario.
• Practice using your pack, opening it, retrieving the tools, assembling them, over and over.
• Never use the safety tools pocket for anything but safety tools. You don’t want skins or a jacket hindering access during key moments.
• Never cross webbing or other gear over the safety tools pocket zipper–keep access to that pocket easy at all times, booting, skinning, or skiing.

While we all have preferences of gear and tools, safety is objective, and speed is safety. Check out our safety first backcountry ski packs, the Vivid 27L and the Vivid 35L packs.