>>932027I would suggest taking the training after you have the gear - use your gear through the training.
Your equipment won't do you any good should you find yourself buried - your friends have to have the gear and be proficient with it to coordinate effective rescue. Take a class with your friends, it's more fun that way anyways.
Airbag pack's the only piece of rescue equipment that you wear for yourself. The rest of it's to save your friends life.
Modern digital 3-antenna beacon... T2's fast, fairly inexpensive, works well (what I use). T3's a little smaller, a little faster, has a couple of nice more-advanced features. 3+ does better at pinpoint search over the T2/T3 in my experience. Element is a good basic beacon; Pulse is nice/expensive and has a LOT of features, also the most complicated to use and figure out.
Probe, 270cm minimum. 300's nice to have but doesn't fit in some smaller packs. Stealth has the best latching mechanism IMO. As a professional I blow out about one a year, cable starts to delaminate and snags on deployment. Never had a full-failure, just gets more and more difficult to deploy. As a filthy casual they'll last you years.
The "convertible" shovels that switch between shovel and hoe are nice. Dozer's what I ride with, switching between two modes is kind of clunky (handle flips over entirely). Kodiak's a better shovel all around imo, angry shoveling edge and a better handle system. Don't go too big, otherwise you take bigger bites than you should and wear yourself out quicker.
