10 Winter Hiking and Backpacking Accessories

These are winter hiking and backpacking gear accessories that differ from what you’d carry in warmer weather. While they can add convenience to your trips, many are essential for increasing your safety in hazardous conditions.

1. Water Bottle Insulator

Drinking water will freeze in winter unless you do something to prevent it. The best way is to fill wide-mouth ultralight Nalgene bottles (the milky white ones) with boiling hot water when you break camp, and to carry them inside your backpack, nestled in your sleep insulation, or upside down in an external insulated water bottle pocket like the Hyperlite Mountain Gear  Insulator so they stay warmer longer.

2. Sleeping Bag Vapor Barrier Liner

Winter sleeping bags are very expensive and extremely bulky when packed, even if they’re filled with premium 800+ down insulation. You can offset that expense by buying a sleeping bag liner and using a bag designed for warmer weather: for example, augmenting a 0-degree sleeping bag with a +15-degree sleeping bag liner like the Sea-to-Summit Thermolite Reactor Extreme or the Coccoon Wool Sleeping Bag Liner. If the liner is a non-porous bivy sack, like the Western Mountaineering Hot Sac Vapor Barrer Liner, it will prevent perspiration from degrading the loft of your sleeping bag insulation and keep you warmer, especially when used over multiple nights. See our FAQ to learn more about Vapor Barrier Clothing and Sleeping Bag Liners for winter hiking and backpacking.

3. Crampon Bag

Crampons provide extra traction when hiking over thick ice. But they can tear the crap out of your extra clothing layers if they’re stored inside your backpack without added protection. You’re better off carrying them in a reinforced crampon bag. Stow it in an external backpack pocket so any lingering moisture on your crampons can drain without wetting your other gear.

4. Sternum Pouch for Gloves and Hats

The last thing you want to do when winter hiking is to stop hiking to get something out of your backpack because you’ll get chilled in the process. You can avoid this by carrying a large front pouch over your sternum or any pack, filled with extra glove liners, mitten shells, hand warmers, and hats. I prefer using a high-capacity sternum pouch because it lets me see my feet, which is important when wearing winter traction aids like crampons. Packbag Designs makes a good sternum strap for this purpose.

5. High Gaiters

High gaiters keep snow from wetting your socks while hiking or snowshoeing. After years of using ill-fitting and overpriced Outdoor Research Crocodile Gaiters, I now recommend the much less expensive and better Pike Trail Gaiters, which accommodate different calf sizes and are less prone to falling down your legs and bunching when hiking. This is particularly important to prevent tripping on your crampons or traction aids.

6. A Second Headlamp

Many winter hikes and backpacking trips start before the sun comes up and end after it’s gone down because there are so few hours of daylight in winter. While a headlamp is a necessity, I recommend bringing a backup in case your primary runs out of power or you need to loan one to a companion. While you can carry backup batteries or a recharger for your primary headlamp, it’s often much easier to carry a second headlamp with fully charged batteries that you can quickly swap out if needed, especially if you don’t want to remove your gloves. The weight penalty is negligible. I recommend a dual-power headlamp like the Petzl Core 625, which can be used with either rechargeable batteries or separate lithium batteries (which are more cold-resistant than alkaline batteries). Just make sure that both your headlamps can use the same batteries interchangeably for optimal redundancy.

7. Foam Sleeping Pad

A foam sleeping pad is a multi-purpose winter accessory that can be used as a sit pad when you’re melting snow for drinking water, as added insulation under a sleeping pad, or as wilderness first aid insulation under a companion to prevent hypothermia if they have an accident on a winter hike. I always carry a foam sleeping pad on winter hikes and backpacking trips, tucked behind the shoulder straps inside my backpack. I like using a folding Therm-a-Rest Z-Lite Sol for this purpose, cutting off a few sections to save space in my pack.

8. Avalanche Shovel

Avalanche shovels are great for digging out snow kitchens, tent platforms, front porches, and building windbreaks when winter camping, even when they’re not needed for rescue in avalanche terrain. You typically only need one or two per party rather than having everyone carry they’re own. Most avalanche shovels break apart for ease of packing, or they have telescoping handles. I use a Voile Telepro that’s nearly 20 years old, but is still a great value. Backcountry.com has the best modern selection of newer models.

9. Synthetic Insulated Vest

While an insulated vest is not strictly necessary for winter hiking, it’s an excellent layer when you want additional warmth that’s easy to pack and adds very little weight to your gear list. A synthetic vest is best because it will continue to insulate even if you saturate it with perspiration or it gets wet. I swear by mine and frequently wear it over a highly breathable softshell jacket when winter hiking and snowshoeing.

10. Small Nalgene Snack Bottle

Winter hiking and snowshoeing use a lot more energy than three-season hiking because you need to carry more gear weight, water, food, and because surface conditions can make progress much slower. The trick to staying fueled is to frequently munch on high-calorie snacks that won’t freeze and don’t require much dexterity to eat. The last thing you want to do is to take off your gloves to fumble open a power bar wrapper. For example, I like to fill a small 16-oz Nalgene Bottle with walnuts, raisins, and chocolate chips, looping the bottle cap lanyard around my backpack shoulder strap to keep it within easy reach.