Best New Ski Packs for 2025 For Carrying Essential Gear on the Slopes

Unless you have massive pockets in your jacket and pants and don’t mind loading them up with pounds of gear, you need a pack to go backcountry skiing. Just the basic avalanche safety equipment, snacks, water, and layers demands at least a small ski backpack and given the amount of time you’ll spend wearing it, you want a pack that fits your body and your style of ski touring.

Thankfully, there are more options than ever thanks to an explosion of interest in the sport and ski brands rising to meet the demand. This means you get ski backpacks built for the sport with specialized pockets and storage and constructed to be worn with ski gear in winter conditions. Even if you stay inbounds, there are great ski-oriented packs for when you’re skiing a full day and want to have everything you need on your person.

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The following ski packs are all great but which one works for you will depend on the type of skier or snowboarder you are. Our favorite ski backpack is the Deuter Freeride Pro 34L+ pack but we highlight options for multi-day missions down to running-vest style options for fast and light lunch shreds. Need to update more ski gear? Check out these new snowsport round ups focused on the best skis and the best gloves.

Best Ski Packs at a Glance

• Best Ski Pack Overall: Deuter Freerider Pro 34+L

• Best Airbag Ski Pack: Ortovox Avabag LiTRIC Freeride 28

• Best Vest Ski Pack: Dakine Team Poacher RAS Vest Karl Fostvedt

• Best Ultralight Ski Pack: Dynafit Speed 20

• Best Budget Ski Packs: Evo Sea to Sky 26L Multi-Function

• Best Ski Pack for Ski Areas: Gregory Verte

Related: These 17 Après-Ski Essentials Are the Perfect Way to End a Ski Day

Best Ski Packs for 2025

Best Ski Pack Overall: Deuter Freerider Pro 34+L

The 34 liters of volume in deuter’s streamlined Freerider Pro pack is a sweet spot for most backcountry skiers. It’s big enough for guides to carry a day’s worth of extra gear, thanks to a roll-top that gives you 10 extra liters when you need. Still, it has a small enough footprint that you won’t dread strapping it on with just the basics for a quick mission or a day riding chairlifts. It’s also ultralight for a pack with these features, casually weighing under 3 pounds without looking like a stripped-down ultralight backpack.

There’s a spot for everything with dedicated shovel and probe slots in the outside pocket, top-mounted goggles/glasses pouch, and ice axe holder. It sports multiple ski-carry options, including a-frame and diagonal and straps for mounting snowboard or snowshoes and a stowaway mesh holds a helmet on the outside for the ascent.

• Volume: 34 liters

• Weight: 2.82 pounds

Best Airbag Ski Pack: Ortovox Avabag LiTRIC Freeride 28

Avalanches are unpredictable, deadly, and, hence, scary. If you’re ski touring in the backcountry, you’ve likely considered an airbag pack since they’ve been shown to improve survival rates if you get caught in an avalanche, but price and weight scare people off. While prices haven’t come down and the weight savings is minimal over canister systems, the electronic LiTRIC system (co-developed with Arc’teryx) takes up much less room inside the pack so your pack can do more than just house your airbag system.

The other big advantage of this and other electronic systems is the ability to actually practice using your airbag. The CO2 canisters used in other systems cost money to refill and require taking it to a designated fill location. The LiTRIC system is only limited by the battery which should be good for two deployments before needing a recharge. The trigger handle system is also the best I’ve used since it doesn’t have to go inside a zippered strap pouch and the switch from ‘off’ to ‘on’ is clear.

The Ortovox Freeride 28 is also just a great pack, with all the expected ski features such as ski/snowboard carry, smart shovel, and probe storage and a low-profile build that minimizes the impact on your ski experience. This is as good as it gets (for now) in airbag packs, but if $1,350 for a backpack is too hard to stomach, Mammut’s canister-based Free 28 Airbag 3.0 Pack retails for less than $800 and is still a great airbag ski pack.

• Volume: 28 liters

• Weight: 5.7 pounds

Best Vest Ski Pack: Dakine Team Poacher RAS Vest Karl Fostvedt

The worst part about wearing a backpack skiing is feeling it slow you down on an epic run. You’re choking on pow and you know you need to carry your safety tools, but you wish you didn’t. The Dakine Team Poacher RAS Vest is a light and efficient way to carry not only your avalanche safety equipment, but a potentially lifesaving airbag system. The Poacher RAS packs have been a popular freeride pack for years and the vest shaves the weight down from about 4 pounds to XXX. The vest design also keeps everything tight to your body to minimize the impact on your skiing.

Like the Poacher packs, there’s dedicated shovel and probe storage, soft-lined goggle pocket, and ski and snowboard carry attachments. Unfortunately, you’ll need to spend twice the cost of the vest to add in the Removable Airbag 3.0 System by Mammut for which it’s built, though you can certainly rock the vest without the airbag. Either way, this is a great option for quick tours, snowcat skiing, and heli trips where you want to carry the bare minimum while staying safe.

• Volume: 18 liters (airbag device takes up ~3 liters)

• Weight: 3.34 pounds

Best Ultralight Ski Pack: Dynafit Speed 20

The longer you spend in the backcountry, the more you realize shaving weight matters. A few grams here and there might not seem like a big deal, but if you can optimize everything from skis to your pack, it can let you go further faster and have more energy for the descent. Dynafit is known for developing the now-standard pin binding system, but most of their gear oozes speed and the Dynafit Speed 20 has it right in the name.

This stripped-down, low-volume pack is all you need for quick training runs but it’s more than a glorified running vest. There’s dedicated safety equipment storage, hydration sleeve, strap-mounted water bottle holders, helmet mesh, crampon pocket, ice axe holder, and diagonal ski carry attachments. That’s a lot for a 20-liter pack that weighs only 1.5 pounds.

• Volume: 20 liter

• Weight: 1.49 pounds

Best Budget Ski Packs: Evo Sea to Sky 26L

For infrequent backcountry skiers, forking over hundreds for a dedicated skiing pack after spending thousands on “the basics” such as skis and boots, can seem unnecessary. If you want the advantages of a pack built for skiing without breaking the bank, Evo’s simple Sea to Sky Pack has everything you need for day tours with a price under $100.

Most importantly, it features dedicated shovel and probe slots so you always know where they are. Strap make vertical or side/a-frame ski and splitboard carry possible and there’s chest and waist straps to keep the pack tight to your body when in motion. It also can double nicely as a work or hiking pack with laptop sleeve and water bottle storage.

• Volume: 26 liter

• Weight: N/A

Best Ski Pack for Ski Areas: Gregory Verte

If you just want a barebones skiing pack that won’t weight you down, the Gregory Verte pares down the size and weight by skipping backcountry-specific features such as shovel and probe storage in this 12-liter pack. Stay free of the lodge and locker scene by stowing extra layers, snacks, and water instead of loading down your jacket pockets.

The ski or snowboard carry options are perfect for hiking beyond the lifts for fresh lines and stay hydrated via the hydration system which keeps the hose zippered up until you need it to avoid the dreaded frozen line. Maybe most significantly for the ski area, he design keeps the dangers of chairlifts in mind with an elastic hip belt that eliminates flapping straps that can literally hang you out to dry.

• Volume: 12 liter

• Weight: 1.4 pounds

Related: Best Cheap Whiskey of 2024 for a Great Bottle on a Budget

What to Look For in a Ski Pack

In general you want a pack that fits your body and the way you travel in the backcountry. If you’re overnighting at backcountry huts, you’ll need to carry more gear than if you mostly take quick early morning laps at a ski area. With the diversity of ski-specific packs available, it usually makes sense to shop from those options rather than expanding your search to include backpacking, hiking, and climbing packs since ski-specific options have ski-specific builds that

Size, Fit, and Volume

Getting a pack that fits is step one. No amount of features will make up for an ill-fitting pack and you should use the brand’s size guide and your body measurements to find the right size. Not every pack is sized however, so you may need to try pack on in-person or be ready to order and return a few packs to find one that fits your size and shape. Trying on packs is more effective if you can load them up with your gear or at least some weight to simulate real-world conditions.

Ski-Specific Features

Having dedicated storage for your avalanche safety equipment is key. These storage pockets are often highlighted with bright-colored zippers and give you dedicated slots for shovel and probe so they’re always in the same spot and easily accessible. Some kind of ski carry option is nice to have but not essential for everyone. If you find yourself bootpacking and carrying your skis often, a ski carry makes life easier, but more casual backcountry skiers may never use it. If you use them, ice axe and helmet storage slots are nice to have as well.

Airbag

We highlight packs both with and without airbag systems in our picks below. These systems jack the price of a pack up high enough that many people will cross them off the list immediately, but if you can afford them and know how to use them, deploying an airbag can greatly improve your odds of survival if caught in an avalanche. That said, they’re no substitute for smart decision-making in the field. They also add several pounds of weight, though lighter electronic systems are replacing the heavier canister-based systems.

Why You Should Trust Me

I’m a lifelong skier raised on icy upstate New York hills currently based in Breckenridge, Colorado, where I ski over 100 days a year, split fairly evenly between backcountry and resort. I spend those days testing all manner of gear from skis to jackets to apps to avalanche beacons for Men’s Journal, Powder, Tripsavvy, Gear Junkie, and I serve as editor of the backcountry ski site WildSnow. I’ve skied on four continents and aim to hit all seven eventually, but some of my favorite runs are in my backyard.

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