Snowboarders stop wearing in-line skating wrist-guards the day they graduate from green runs to blue. Typically, this is more for style than practicality. But Level lets you keep both your wrists and your image intact with its new Super Pipe gloves ($140; 888-224-9774). Layered between a Gore-Tex shell and a fleece liner is a sculpted plastic plate that conforms to the wrist and encircles the base of the thumb. Cinch down the exterior strap and your wrist and thumb are immobilized, so that pancaking the corduroy probably won't send you to the patrol shack with a dangling digit. The plates don't pinch and they are moderately adjustable.

If it's a big powder day—or if you're just feeling bulletproof—take out the plastic guard and you're left with a durable and perfectly comfortable all-mountain glove. The fingertips are reinforced with Kevlar, the back of the hand is padded, and the palm is covered in supple, stout rubber—grabbing your edges in the half-pipe won't shred the fabric. The dime-size mesh vent on the back of the hand keeps your mitts from overheating, but it can also let in moisture. A small quibble about an otherwise ingenious set of joint-preserving gloves. —MARY CATHERINE O'CONNOR

In function, the picnic #5 structure pocketknife from Richartz ($60; 800-859-2029) harks back to the Middle Ages, when a dinner guest was expected to bring his own cutlery—which sometimes meant the cold steel he kept stuffed down his boot. In style, though, this culinary multitool is pure 2001. Not only does the Picnic #5 have the usual bottle opener, can opener, corkscrew, and 2.75-inch blade you'd find on any modern jackknife, but also, when you deploy the serious-looking two-tined fork, the whole apparatus splits neatly in half, allowing you to hold the knife in your right hand, the fork in your left, and to eat like a civilized person.

At 4.2 ounces, the Picnic #5 weighs less than the combination of a standard pocketknife and table fork, and the sleek Teutonic aesthetic lends a far cooler look. Speckled rubber dots help you keep your grip while slicing into that buttery trout almondine, and the brushed stainless-steel body seems like it's built to last. All it needs is a spoon, and perhaps a telescoping lance for toasting marshmallows. —GILLIAN ASHLEY

Photos: Clay Ellis