Kick Up Your Heels

Many ski areas offer easy access to the backcountry at the top and bottom of their hill, which means you need  little more to start than snow-safety gear and a backpack to carry it. Really, that's no exaggeration. One of the great things about the backcountry is that it doesn't demand extraordinary skills. Unless you want to telemark, you can make turns on ungroomed slopes exactly as you would in a ski area. New techniques like skinning or reading snow can only be learned in the field, but that's part of the fun. What else can you do to prepare? Get in better shape. With no chairlifts around, every off-season set of stairs you climb will pay off in the snow.

Once you get a taste of the backcountry, you'll no doubt yearn to travel farther afield, which requires specialized gear for snow travel, such as alpine-touring bindings, or an adapter that converts conventional downhill skis and bindings so you can pivot your boot. If you're buying new, today's alpine-touring bindings are beefier than the flimsy devices of the past, enabling you to use them both in the resort and the backcountry.

Even with touring bindings, you won't get very far without nylon skins which adhere to the base of your skis and mimic the directional nap of sealskin. Slide forward and the ski moves easily; slide backward and the skin grips the snow so you can take a step higher.

When it comes to skis, it's freedom of choice. There are scores of backcountry-specific skis, but they aren't so different from regular skis. Look for mid-fat to fat ski that's not too stiff and not too heavy.

It's also worth the cash for a backcountry-specific pack.

The three essentials of traveling in avalanche country are a transceiver, a shovel, and probes---never go into the backcountry without them. (Probes, typically fashioned from carbon-fiber or aluminum, look like tent poles, and are used to locate a person trapped under the snow, so you don't dig past them.) Transceivers ought to be worn by each member of the backcountry party; if someone has been buried in a slide, set your transceiver to receive and their signal will guide you to them. In the past few years, much has been made of transceivers that use digital processors, but analog or digital processing is far less important than your skills with the device.

First Turns

The unpatrolled nature of backcountry skiing and snowboarding is its very essence, but along with the freedom comes self-reliance. Learn all you can about avalanches, snow and weather dynamics, and rescue techniques. Buried victims die quickly beneath snow, and in most cases it's up to you to find your friends and dig them out. Practice using transceivers with a friend, then practice some more.

The first and best advice for going off-piste, or O.B. (out of bounds), is to go with someone more experienced. Often, a reliable---and terrific---indoctrination can be found through the guide services run by many ski areas. These aren't dork tours: The guides always know the best snow and choicest terrain, they're often some of the best skiers on the mountain, and they can provide tips on safer travel and better turns.

Debris from an avalanche can set like concrete, so carry a shovel that can break through chunks and move lots of snow.

Avalanche gear means nothing without the knowledge and skills to use it. Start by picking up Snow Sense (Alaska Mountain Safety Center, $7), the best book yet written on staying alive in avie terrain, and widely sold online. Next, attend a snow-safety course near you; www.avalanche.org has listings.

Ski areas have rules about where you can cross their boundaries, and not all resorts allow access to the lands beyond the permit area; ask the patrol what their policy is and be sure to respect it.

Most avalanches occur on slopes of 30 to 45 degrees, the most common slope angle for slides occurs in the high 30s, about the pitch of a not-too-steep expert-level resort trail. Slides are most common during storms and right after, but can occur anytime. Slopes loaded with wind-driven snow are especially fragile, as are convex ones. Most skiers caught in slides trigger the slides themselves, which may reflect poor judgement more than ignorance of snow conditions. Major ski centers highlight avalanche danger areas in their daily snow reports. Heed them. But remember that a forecast is just a prediction; the final decision about where and when to ski it up to you.