Introducing ORTOVOX’s new LiTRIC Airbag Packs

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This is not really a review or a new product announcement. The full review of ORTOVOX’s LiTRIC system, and the Freeride 28 pack I’ve been using it in, is coming soon. And these products were announced a little while ago. There’s no embargo I’ve been waiting to publish around. Instead, it’s a bit of an introduction, and a bit of a trip report.

I joked about my relationship with media trips a little this summer, and lo and behold, I got invited on one! ORTOVOX flew me and a bunch of other writers out to Red Mountain Alpine Lodge in Colorado for three days of skiing, presentations, and Q+As about their new line of LiTRIC airbag packs. My biggest takeaway from this novel and privileged experience is that trips like this don’t just happen. For every effortless-sounding product spotlight or release article, there’s a whole army of folks working behind the scenes to make it all possible.

Pieces like this, and the ones the other writers who joined me on this trip will produce, aren’t the result of our creativity or inspiration. We don’t “earn” our ability to cover new ski gear. Instead, thank everyone else, from the PR coordinators to the shipping departments, designers, manufacturers, drivers, the cooks, the housekeepers, and the guides. It takes an army to bring any ski product from idea to marketed reality. It takes a huge amount of labor and care to first design and build something like ORTOVOX’s new LiTRIC airbag system, and then figure out a way to showcase it to us persnickety media folks. So thank you, everyone along that road.

This piece comes in two parts: first, some initial impressions of the new LiTRIC system, and then a little about the skiing during the product launch, and the food.

The new LiTRIC System

The big news here is ORTOVOX’s new LiTRIC airbag system. It’s an electronic avalanche airbag that will be available in ORTOVOX and Arc’Teryx packs this winter. It uses a lithium-ion battery to charge supercapacitors which drive a blower fan that inflates the airbag. ORTOVOX says it’s the lightest electronic airbag system on the market.

But beyond that, ORTOVOX says that their system is class-leading in terms of multiple deployment potential which means it allows for easier inflation practice and an extra layer of security when you’ve already deployed your airbag but are still traveling in avalanche terrain.

We’ll publish a full review of the LiTRIC system soon, and compare its ease of deployment/multiple deployments, repacking, and more with other packs. For now, after three days skiing with it, it’s really easy to use, and feels well thought out. There’s an LED visible from outside the pack that lets your partners know the charging status of your pack. It’s easy to turn on and off without pulling everything out of your pack, and the twisting safety knob should make accidental deployments less likely. The LiTRIC does a good job of solving all the user interface frustrations I had with Alpride’s E2 system.

It’s also very easy to repack the LiTRIC’s airbag after deployment. You can just stuff it back in. On my first try, it took me less than five minutes to go from deployed to ready to ski, and I’d expect that time to drop with more practice. All in all, so far the LiTRIC system has been intuitive and easy to use, and I’m excited to get more time with it and write up a full review.

The Freeride 28 Pack

Ortovox has taken a modular approach with the LiTRIC line. The airbag system stays the same but can be integrated into a variety of base models, and pack sizes. There are three base models: the Freeride, which I tested, the Tour, which most other folks on this trip were using, and the Zero. The Freeride and Tour are both modular base systems–you can zip on different volumes of pack to the core module. The Zero is ORTOVOX’s fast and light model, in which the pack and airbag are fully integrated to save weight, and it’s only available in a 27 liter volume.

The Freeride airbag module has wide, stretchy hip wings, and a pocket for a back protector panel, while the Tour airbag base has gear loops on the hip wings, and shaves some weight throughout. I went with the Freeride base for two reasons: first, I wanted to see how those big stretchy hip wings walked and skied, and second, my current airbag paradigm prioritizes comfort and features over weight. If I’m on a big “touring” outing, I’m less likely to use an airbag than if I’m skiing inbounds and out of bounds on the same day, so the Freeride’s feature set made more sense to me.

It’s pretty easy to swap different sized packs on and off of the Freeride base. In addition to the zippered connection, there’s also a daisy chain that the pack locks into via its compression straps, which means even with the pack heavily loaded, the weight is distributed well and there’s not too much strain on the zipper.

The 28 liter Freeride pack has a nice pocket layout. The avalanche tool pocket has orange zipper pulls, and fits my shovel, probe, ski straps, and skins nicely. The main pocket has plenty of space for all the essentials for a big tour, and the accessory pockets are generous and easy to access. The diagonal ski carry strap is anchored as close to the back panel of the pack as possible, and the pack just feels well thought out. I’ll probably try to get time in the 18 liter Freeride pack as well, since that size makes a bunch of sense for the mix of chairlift riding and backcountry skiing I’m planning on doing.

ORTOVOX has put a bunch of design time into the diaper strap which anchors the pack to your body. It’s bright orange, and there’s no pocket or loop to stow it when it’s not in use. So there’s no excuse not to use it. With other airbag packs, it’s a temptation to leave that vital strap stowed, but with the LiTRIC system, that’s not really a possibility. That strap carabiners into an anchor on the waist belt, which means that the waist belt can use a normal buckle, not the locking climbing harness kind found on some other packs. That makes it much easier to use that buckle with gloves on.

The Skiing

So the pack was dialed, and I’m excited to review it, but what about the rest of the trip? This was my first time backcountry skiing in Colorado, and it lived up to my expectations. Conditions were definitely early season, with a fun combination of touchy layers and low snowpack. But we got a solid dump of light snow before our second day, which meant that most of the skiing was a delicate dance between skimming over barely-concealed sharks, and leaning hard into the turns we thought we could trust. All the while, alpine lines tempted us from afar, inviting but scary.

Skiing from Red Mountain Alpine Lodge is a decadent experience. I’m really new to the world of skiing on other people’s dime, which probably makes me easier to impress, but dang, what a place! I could get used to coming home from skiing every day to find hot soup and home-baked focaccia waiting for me.

Honestly though, watching folks cook for me, watching guides break trail for me, watching our hosts drive us around and figure out activities to keep us entertained, left me with a deep sense of gratitude, mixed with a little imposter syndrome.

Skiing and ski culture is such a delicate dance. Skiing is what we make of it. But it’s also what everyone else makes of it. From the folks who build the infrastructure, to those who design the products, build them, market them, and obsess over them, we’re all projecting our vision of skiing onto the world. This trip was a great opportunity to learn about ORTOVOX, and about our hosts’ perspectives on this trivial activity we center our lives around. Hopefully ORTOVOX’s LiTRIC packs can help make skiing a little safer for us all.

ORTOVOX’s LiTRIC packs are available now.