Spending a weekend in the Swiss Alps is just short enough that if you pack too much, it will feel like a waste, and if you pack too little, it will be a disaster. Besides, the mountains won't care about your itinerary and weather can change from sunny morning to snowy afternoon during a gondola ride. What's more, the price of buying forgotten gear at the resort shops is so high that it can spoil the entire weekend for you.

The solution to packing correctly boils down to two aspects: finding out which pieces of equipment are really necessary, and being honest with yourself about what two or three days of skiing actually requires. Staying for a week in Verbier needs you to carry a different bag than a weekend in Grindelwald, and planning a week's packing while you're there for a weekend is exactly how people end up with a suitcase full of things they never use.

Hence, here is the sincere list of what to bring on a short Alpine trip. It is based on the items that are really used versus those that are left in the hotel room. The aim is one medium bag plus a ski bag, not a fully loaded car.

Layering Is Everything and Nobody Explains It Well

The weather in Swiss Alps during ski season can be really cold and windy in February, going below minus fifteen, to warm and sunny with temperature close to zero by the end of March. And you may find both on the same day. What makes it doable is a right layering system, which is different from just loading up with clothes.

Buying cheap clothes in the base layer is one of the biggest mistakes people do. The good quality base layers made of merino wool or synthetic materials usually cost $60 to $100 per piece but they give dramatically better warmth and are excellent at moisture management. Wearing cotton under the ski jacket is really a bad idea as cotton will absorb your sweat and become cold, wet and cold again. One good skiing base layer set and one extra for the evening will be enough for a weekend.

A mid layer is a main source of insulation. A fleece or a thin down jacket with a 100 to 200 gram filling level is a mainstay item, sufficiently warm for most situations and compact enough to shove into a ski backpack if you get too warm. It is fine to bring a more heavy insulation piece such as a thicker down jacket for the evening and when taking a lift in cold weather, but you probably will not wear it during skiing.

Hands, Feet, and Head: The Small Stuff That Ruins Trips

Whether gloves or mittens, your handgear must be genuinely warm and waterproof and not just a pretty winter thing. Mittens, being more insulated than gloves, are a good option to keep the hands four for the coldest day; however, gloves are more functional and give better control. If you ski quite a bit, then a second pair of light gloves for spring skiing or warmer afternoons is very handy, and a weekend skier may choose to go without. A very light glove inside the big one very effectively increases the possible temperature range of the gloves and hardly adds to the weight. Specialty Swiss outdoor retailers like pandaloo.ch are a sensible place to sort this out before the trip, since resort-village shops mark up basics like liner gloves and wool socks considerably compared to ordering ahead.

Whether gloves or mittens, your handgear must be genuinely warm and waterproof and not just a pretty winter thing. Mittens, being more insulated than gloves, are a good option to keep the hands four for the coldest day; however, gloves are more functional and give better control. If you ski quite a bit, then a second pair of light gloves for spring skiing or warmer afternoons is very handy, and a weekend skier may choose to go without. A very light glove inside the big one very effectively increases the possible temperature range of the gloves and hardly adds to the weight.

Equipment: Rent or Bring Your Own?

For a weekend outing, the deciding factor between renting and owning your ski gear boils down largely to how often you ski throughout the year. If you rent all the equipment - skis, boots, and poles - for just a weekend, you'll be paying approximately 150 to 200 Swiss francs per day in most ski resorts. The cost of renting for 2 or 3 weekends only equals the price of a good used setup, and also the gap in performance between rental gear and personal, well-fitted skis is quite big.

Boots are the item where owning them is by far better than renting. Getting a boot that fits perfectly is probably the biggest single step you can take to improve your performance, and since rental boots have to cater for the average foot, they will inevitably be a compromise that doesn't suit specific foot shapes very well. So if a person skis more than just a few days in a year, they should definitely have their own boots, even if they rent the skis.

But if you take your own equipment, then how to get there on a weekend is a important matter. When it comes to ski travel, Swiss trains are a great option - you usually don't need special arrangements for carrying skis and luggage on most intercity trains, and the resort network is almost completely covered by this. However, you should still check the baggage policies of any local trains or cog railways because some of them have more strict rules.

The Evenings Matter Too

Efforts towards aprs-ski and evening packing are what cause people to either bring too much or too little depending on their expectations. In fact, Swiss mountain restaurants and bars differ from those that are totally casual to those that are extremely formal, especially in the more luxurious resorts such as St. Moritz or Zermatt. Almost any dinner situation you may come across during a weekend can be covered by a simple outfit of one pair of good-quality jeans or chinos and one dressier sweater.

Waterproof winter boots suitable for walking around town will turn out to be more handy than one might think. It is simply horrible to wear ski boots for walking longer distances than just the parking lot, and regular shoes become a total failure on the snow and salted streets of resort villages. Getting a pair of insulated boots that double as walking shoes for the dinner outing is a minor addition in your luggage that brings benefits every evening of the trip.