ISPO Award Winner 2024: Raide LF 30L backpack

The LF - short for “Light and Fast”- 30L combines key touring features with a unique avalanche safety design — all at just 1060g. It can even slim down to 980g with the removal of the pack’s frame. This 30L pack can grow its carry capacity to 38L with the help of the rolltop. »The design ethos of the LF 30L pack is not to develop the lightest pack on the market, but a lightweight, fully featured pack that makes you faster through better access, organization, and comfort,« says Raide founder Kyle Siegel. Raide launched in October 2023 and makes softgoods for efficient powered movement in the mountains. »We are unique in that all of our products first start with a problem or set of problems human powered athletes face and then we solve them with the product, figuring out cost and category last«, Siegel explains the drive behind his brand. 

With the LF 30L, Raide set out to answer the question, Can we design a pack that enhances a skier’s flow in the mountains instead of interrupting it? Traditionally, ultralight packs skimp on features for the sake of shaving a few grams from total weight; meanwhile, mainstream ski touring packs often lack the simple but important elements like stash pockets for skins, or integrated helmet carries. With the LF 30L, Raide went back to the drawing board, reimagining what a light, fast, and fully featured ski touring and ski mountaineering pack could be.

The pack’s patent-pending avy tool access exemplifies this approach to design. At the heart of avalanche education courses, backcountry travelers learn to keep tools ready for rescue and snow study. Through the LF 30L design, Raide decreased barriers for snow safety tool use to encourage proper avalanche safety habits while also prioritizing ease of use for general gear access. The patent pending LF 30L avalanche tool pocket is the most innovative part of this pack, allowing users to access their shovel and probe without removing their pack. This is critical for safety, both when proactively studying the snowpack on an ascent and also in rescue scenarios when a rapid response is critical.

“The snow safety tool organization is very unique and puts the 3 components of a snow safety kit - shovel blade, shovel handle, and probe- against the 3 different panels of the backpack. This makes it so that the tools take up less space while being closer to the user's center of mass for better downhill performance“, Raide founder Kyle Siegel says.

A shovel and probe are never used at the same time in a rescue situation, and the LF 30L allows the rescuer to have fast but separate access to each tool when needed. During the initial portion of a search when a probe is needed, a searcher can keep a shovel stashed but readily available. For a switch from probing to shoveling, a searcher can slip one arm out of a shoulder strap, swing the pack to the front and grab the shovel quickly without ever having to take the pack off. Because a searcher doesn’t have to remove both a shovel and probe at the same time, the likelihood of putting a shovel down in an inconvenient spot during a rescue is greatly reduced. The shovel pocket itself is unique: shovel handle and shovel blade are separated to improve the space efficiency of the pack, but accessible via the same zipper opening.

Ski touring and ski mountaineering are the most demanding sports on any snowsport pack. Raide chose the highest strength-to-weight ratio materials — UHMWPE — while also prioritizing the specific features crucial to the ski mountaineering experience. “The pack is made of woven UHMWPE which is 15x the strength of steel by weight“, Siegel explains. The UHMWPE is also PFAS-free and the highest strength-to-weight thread available: the laminated fabric has a 130k hydrostatic head rating, ensuring those crucial extra layers on a tour stay dry.

Back panel access in a backcountry bag is critical: if skis or a board are strapped to the exterior of a pack, back panel access is the only way to fully reach gear on the inside. However, packs with back panel access often suffer from flex in the panel and can be uncomfortable while touring. The LF 30L boasts a back panel made from an ultralight molded composite that resists bending outward and is molded to the shape of the frame. The modular ski carry for the LF 30L provides three orientation options for carrying skis; this enables the skier to change the position based on the needs of an objective. The ski carry is mounted to the rigid frame of the pack so skis won’t swing around on the outside of the pack during a bootpack.

While prioritizing a “light and fast” weight, the LF 30L doesn’t skimp on features designed to enhance a user’s experience, including a glove stash strap on the pack’s shoulder strap, independent ice tool carry that keeps picks enclosed and easy to access without removing the pack, ice clipper loop, a zippered hip pad pocket large enough for a standard iPhone.

• Access to avy tools without removing one’s pack
• Back panel access with composite molded back panel for more comfort when fully loaded
• Integrated helmet carry and stash pocket