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Advice Splitboarding

Splitboard Hacks | Tricks And Tips For Touring

Spark R&D share some insider splitboarding knowledge to make life easy on the trail

Splitboarding comes with a pretty steep learning curve. Leave your water bottle at home and you’ll likely have a laminated checklist printed out quicker than your piss returns to a normal colour. But what about all the little things? The mistakes that you didn’t even know were mistakes. All the tweaks to your technique that make the biggest differences, or the simple tips nobody ever taught you. Enter: The Splitboard Hacks!

“We’ve teamed up with Spark R&D to bring you a short series of tricks and tips designed to make life in the backcountry hassle-free”

We’ve teamed up with Spark R&D to bring you a short series of tricks and tips designed to make life in the backcountry hassle-free and you the envy of your touring party. Of course, if you’re looking for the fundamentals, we’ve got all the basics covered in our Splitboard Hub, from packing a bag for splitboarding to descending safely in potential avalanche terrain.

The Splitboard Hacks, on the other hand, are to separate the wheat from the chaff, the mountain goats from the hillside faffers. These are all the things you never knew you were doing wrong until you started doing them right.

Scroll down to view all the Splitboard Hacks or skip to a particular video using the links below

The ‘Ski Carry’ | The ‘Boot’ | The ‘Beer Caddy’ | The ‘Ice Scraper’ | The ‘Skins In The Jacket’ | The ‘Lip Balm’

The ‘Ski Carry’

Best For: Carrying your split-skis and moving on foot without guillotining yourself.

Bootpacking along a ridgeline, or simply walking from the house to the snowline? The ‘Ski Carry’ is a simple hack to secure your splitboard with minimal faff and to get on the move with maximum efficiency.
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The ‘Boot’

Best For: Rapid transitions in powder before someone poaches your line.

No one should ever complain about too much fresh snow, but it can make putting your bindings back into ride mode a little tricky. Next time your board keeps sinking into all those freshies, remember – use your boot!
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The ‘Beer Caddy’

Best For: Minimizing the pack weight, without neglecting the beer crate

Staying hydrated in the backcountry is key. Then again, so is travelling light. The solution? The Beer Caddy.

Sure, your touring buddy might feel a little exploited when they realise they’ve just hauled a couple of tins up 3,000 vertical feet, but those worries will soon fade away with that first swig of a crispy cold bad boy on the summit. *Gulp*… Ahh!
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The ‘Ice Scraper’

Best For: Ensuring you’re not walking home after the first descent of the day.

A bit like forgetting to defrost the car windscreen 10 minutes before you leave for work, there’s nothing worse than forgetting to de-ice your splitboard skins before the ride down only to find the glue no longer sticking for the next ascent moments later.
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The ‘Skins In The Jacket’

Best For: Frequent changeovers from walk to ride.

We’ve all done it – we’re in a hurry to be the first one ready and get the pick of the line at the drop-in, only to reach the bottom, set up for walk mode, and realise your skins are wet or frozen from the botched transition up top. The fix? Simple! Stick them in your jacket before you drop to keep pthem from freezing up.
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The ‘Lip Balm’

Best For: No longer having to explain the tub of vaseline you always bring on backcountry weekends with your mates.

You know that chapstick you keep in the bottom of your backpack and haven’t applied to your lips once? Well, it turns out there’s another handy use for it in the backcountry. Next time you find your climbing wires getting a little tough to lever into position, apply a small amount to the wires et voila! Silky smooth adjustments, once again!
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