As a backcountry skier, I need several pairs of diverse gloves and mittens to keep my hands warm and protected through a wide range of activities and weather. My hands also tend to be on the cold side of things, so I seek extra warmth and high-performance moisture-wicking. On top of that, I seem to blast through gloves as fast as I can eat a pound of chocolate. It’s seriously hard for me to find a glove or mitten that can withstand my use for a year or longer. Yet, LEKI’s products have served my hands well for both durability and performance.

As someone who has torn her ACL three times, the safety of the bindings I ski on is of utmost importance to me. I need a binding that will stay on through steep and technical terrain, which I can trust will stay on my feet when I need it most. But, at the same time, I also need the binding to release when it should to save potential knee injuries. I have never liked the thought of skiing a tech binding in “locked mode” for fear that it won’t release when I actually need it to. The Tecton provides a perfect blend of reliability and releaseablility by integrating a host of features.

I’m very picky about my backcountry ski boots. Not only do I need a boot designed and engineered around a women’s foot, but I also need one that performs well on technical descents, yet is light enough and comfortable enough for long (12+ hour) tours. That combination alone severely limits the backcountry boots available to me. Typically, I lean toward a stiffer, slightly heavier, freeride-style backcountry ski boot. After demoing previous models of La Sportiva ski boots, my feedback was always, “It’s a nice boot… for someone else. I still want stiffer.” But, the release of the La Sportiva Shadow backcountry ski boot (the women’s version of the La Sportiva Synchro) finally brought a smile to my face. “Now this is a four-buckle touring boot I think I will really like,” I said. And I was right.