Snowshoeing is traveling over snow on foot using snowshoes — wide frames strapped to boots that spread your weight to prevent sinking deeply into soft snow (flotation). The easiest snow sport to learn, it lets hikers extend into winter on packed trails or break trail through deep snow, often with poles and traction crampons built into the snowshoes.
Splitboarding is backcountry snowboarding using a splitboard — a snowboard that separates lengthwise into two ski-like halves for climbing uphill with skins, then clips back together into a single board for the descent. It's the snowboarder's equivalent of ski touring, opening up self-powered access to backcountry terrain, with the same need for avalanche skills and gear.
Snowboarding is a snow sport in which the rider descends slopes on a single board with both feet strapped in sideways via bindings. Riders use a regular (left foot forward) or goofy (right foot forward) stance and turn by edging the board. Styles include freeride, freestyle (park and pipe), and all-mountain riding, at resorts and in the backcountry.
Ski mountaineering combines mountaineering and skiing — climbing peaks on skis (or carrying them) using skins, crampons, and ice axes, then descending on skis through alpine terrain. It spans serious ski alpinism on glaciated, technical mountains and the fast, lightweight racing format known as skimo, demanding both mountain and skiing skills plus avalanche and glacier knowledge.
Telemark skiing is a downhill style using free-heel bindings (the heel is never locked down) and a distinctive turn in which the skier drops into a lunge, leading with one ski and trailing the other with a bent rear knee. Named for Norway's Telemark region, it demands balance and technique and is prized for its graceful, athletic feel — 'free your heel, free your mind.'
Backcountry skiing is skiing in unpatrolled, ungroomed terrain outside ski-area boundaries, where there is no avalanche control, grooming, or rescue. It offers untracked snow and solitude but demands self-sufficiency, avalanche education and gear (beacon, shovel, probe), fitness, and route-finding. Most access is by ski touring uphill under your own power.
Ski touring is traveling uphill and across snow-covered terrain under your own power using specialized bindings that free the heel for climbing, then lock it down to ski descents — with climbing skins on the skis for traction going up. It's the engine of backcountry skiing, letting skiers reach untracked terrain away from lifts.
Cross-country skiing (Nordic skiing) is human-powered skiing across flat and rolling snow-covered terrain using lightweight skis and free-heel bindings that fix only the toe. Its two main styles are classic (striding in parallel tracks) and skate skiing (a skating motion on firm snow). It's a major endurance sport and an efficient way to travel over snow.
Alpine skiing is downhill skiing on groomed slopes using fixed-heel bindings that lock both toe and heel to the ski, typically at lift-served resorts. It emphasizes carving and controlling speed on descents and is the most common form of recreational skiing, distinct from cross-country and free-heel telemark skiing.
UPF (Ultraviolet Protection Factor) rates how effectively a fabric blocks ultraviolet radiation from reaching your skin. A UPF 50 fabric lets through only about 1/50th (2%) of UV, blocking roughly 98%. Unlike SPF, which rates sunscreen against UVB, UPF measures clothing against both UVA and UVB, and depends on the fabric's weave, color, weight, and treatments.