Safety First! Ride Faster With These Ski and Snowboard Helmets

Why stay cooped up inside this winter when you can ski or snowboard? Think early morning wake-up calls, breakfast burritos on the road, gearing up in the parking lot, meeting up with your favorite people, hitting the slopes all day long, winding down with some après-ski beverages at a mountain lodge, and then doing it all over again the next day. What better way to spend your winter than that?

Ten or 15 years ago, it was a rare sight to spot someone wearing a helmet while skiing or snowboarding; many of us grew up skiing in beanies. Thankfully, times have changed: People are taking safety more seriously, and now nearly everyone wears a helmet at the ski resort. Helmets can protect your noggin if you ski too close to a tree or if you have a yard sale off a side hit, so you can pop back up and live to ski another day.

The Best Ski and Snowboard Helmets

What to Consider

Helmets for snow sports — skiing and snowboarding — are much different than what you would wear for bicycling or skating. Technology is pretty advanced nowadays, so first consider the construction (or level of protection), fit adjustability, and venting before looking at liners, goggle compatibility, style, and more.

Construction

Most traditional ski and snowboard helmets are built with an outer shell (typically a high-impact ABS plastic) that distributes force, plus an inner layer (typically EPS expanded polystyrene foam) that absorbs impact. Many of the more advanced (and more expensive) helmets feature proprietary technologies, Koroyd, or WaveCel, which offer additional protection when compared to a standard EPS foam helmet. We're big fans of the added protection of these technologies because a few extra dollars is a small price to pay to protect your brain.

MIPS: Multi-Directional Impact Protection System

MIPS is the gold standard for brain protection in high-end helmets, but it's not included in many budget helmets. MIPS works by mimicking the brain’s protective structure and reducing rotational forces caused by angled impacts to the head. MIPS is a shell inside the helmet that slides, noticeably reducing trauma to the brain in the case of oblique impacts. To us, it seems like a no-brainer (ha!) to invest in a helmet with MIPS, so you can keep coming back for more, year after year, fall after fall.

Venting

Helmet vents can be quite the dilemma: They let heat escape and prevent your goggles from fogging up too quickly, but they also let cool air and snowflakes in when it's storming. Some helmets have just a few vents, while others have upwards of 20 for high-octane skiers. For the best of both worlds, we always prefer adjustable vents that can be opened and closed for precise temperature regulation, but those come at a premium.

Additional Features

• Fit Adjustability: Some helmets have an elastic liner that hugs your head, but those can fit a bit loose. We much prefer the snug, customizable fit you get from a quick-adjusting dial. Make sure to measure your head circumference to get the right size, and remember that you might want extra space for a beanie underneath when it's extra nippy.

• Liners: Most ski and snowboard helmets have liners built in for warmth — some are heavy and plush, while others are lighter and more breathable.

• Goggle Compatibility: Most (not all) helmet brims are shaped to accept goggles universally, but they will fit especially well with goggles of the same brand. For example, Smith goggles fit nicely with Smith helmets, just like Anon helmets mesh well with Anon goggles, but a Smith helmet should mesh just fine with Anon goggles. Lesser-known helmets may not have the same universality.

• Style: This is a personal preference that should complement the rest of your outfit. If the rest of your kit is flashy, go ahead and make a statement. If your outfit is more subdued, keep it casual.

How We Selected

To help you narrow down your choice from a wide variety of options, we've spent hours researching the latest and greatest technologies, talking to industry professionals, surveying user reviews, and personally testing many ski and snowboard helmets from top brands like Smith, Giro, and more. We've even taken some hard falls in a few of these helmets, and were able to get right back up and ski down.

We’ve often said, “If you’re not falling, you’re not trying!” So if you want to ski hard, occasionally fall hard, and get right back up and do it all over again, we recommend picking up one of this season’s best ski and snowboard helmets. Because safety never sleeps. And, well, you only get one brain.