I've spent six winters testing avalanche shovels across the Wasatch, the Tetons, and the Coast Mountains of British Columbia. After burying weighted dummies in concrete-like debris piles and digging real pits through depth hoar layers, I can tell you with confidence which shovels hold up when your partner is buried and which ones snap in […]

I learned the hard way that a regular driveway shovel is useless in a car trunk. Three winters ago I got stuck in a 14-inch snowfall outside Denver, and my full-size True Temper could not fit between the spare tire and the wheel well. That cold morning is what started this guide. After testing 23 […]

I've watched too many riders in my group eat snow hard and come up clutching a wrist. A fractured distal radius is the single most common snowboarding injury, and the data backs up what we've seen on the mountain season after season. After testing 6 snowboarding wrist guards across two winters and talking to patrollers […]

Getting kids outside in winter can feel like a battle against screens, cold, and boredom. When I first strapped my daughter into a pair of kids snowshoes at age four, she spent thirty minutes just stomping around the yard making monster tracks in fresh powder. That moment sold me on winter hiking as a family […]

I'll be honest: I used to toss my skis across the back seat of my car wrapped in a sleeping bag. Then I watched a baggage handler at Denver International drop a skier's setup off the belt like a bag of potatoes. That was the day I started searching for the best ski bags, and […]

Looking for the best snowshoe poles in to keep you upright, balanced, and pain-free this winter? I have spent the last four winters testing poles on everything from flat groomed trails to steep backcountry descents in Montana and Colorado, and I have watched my knees go from aching after every outing to barely registering a […]

When the snow starts falling, our team gets restless. Over the past two winters, we have tested eight different snow bikes across packed trails, fresh powder, and groomed resort runs to find what actually works. The term "snow bikes" covers more ground than most riders realize. You can convert a dirt bike with a track […]

I've stood in parking lots at 6 AM with numb fingers scraping ice off my windshield far too many times. After testing 8 of the best snow brushes and scrapers across three Michigan winters, I can tell you exactly which ones actually save your morning and which ones crack on the first freeze. Last February, […]

When I pitched my first winter tent at 11,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains, I learned a hard lesson within 30 minutes. The cheap aluminum stakes I trusted on summer trips pulled straight out of compacted snow as a gust hit 40 mph. My tent collapsed, gear got soaked, and I spent the rest of […]

There is nothing quite like the rush of flying down a snow-covered hill on a quality snow tube. The best snow tubes turn a cold winter afternoon into the kind of memory your family talks about for years, but finding one that actually lasts past the first season is harder than it should be. Our […]