I’ve always been a fan of burly tele rigs. Stiff 4-buckle Scarpa T-Race boots, fat, long stiff, heavy skis, heavy stiff bindings like the Axl. I’ll suck it up and take them on long tours, suffering the weight penalty for better downhill performance.
Our fearless leader, donnyb, frequently exposes the virtues of rugged touring. That is, using lightweight 3-pin boots or old-school leather tele boots with waxless, metal edged skis with some degree of sidecut. And I’ve always been skeptical. But, after an ill-fated front flip attempt last weekend that led to some major bruising on one leg, suddenly my big stiff boots didn’t feel so good. In fact, I couldn’t wear or ski in them at all. But lo and behold, I could wear a low cut 3-pin boot such as the Alpina BC 1575! So I snagged a pair of our demo skis, Alpina X-Terrains in a 160cm with a Voile HD Mountaineer 3-pin binding and decided to go see what this rugged touring business was all about.
The Denver metro area got a good amount of snow in town early last week, so rather than drive all the way up to the mountains, I headed for Green Mountain Open Space park. Green Mountain is 15 minutes from my house, and has a lot of little sub-ridges that hold good snow where the wind has drifted it in. With pretty mellow slope angles and good snow cover on the summer trails, it seemed like a good spot to try out this kind of gear.
First impressions out on the trail – wow these are light and fast! With the waxless fishscaled base, I could glide and move so much faster uphill than with my 140mm skins on my regular tele touring rig. About half as much weight helped, too. I could instantly see that getting deep into the backcountry would be much more efficient on this type of rig. Once I figured out the technique, I was able to climb surprisingly steep slopes with the fishscales.
I followed the summer road about halfway to the top of Green Mountain when an enticing looking slope to the north caught my eye. Cutting across a gully, I started climbing the slope. I found I needed to switchback much more frequently than I was accustomed to since I didn’t have skins, but climbing the mellow slope (about 20 degrees) was not problem at all. At the top, it sure was nice to not need to takes skins off, tighten boots, put a helmet on, etc, etc.
Ready to ski, looking down at the slope, I was honestly a little nervous. The boots were suddenly feeling awfully floppy, and man the skis looked short! I haven’t skied anything as short as 160cm since I was probably 12. But after a couple shaky turns, I got the hang of it. Yes, you can actually ski on a setup like this! The tracks tell the tale:
So fun, in fact, I blasted back up for another lap, then skied back to the car as the sun set.
Call me a convert. I guess I’m gonna need to get a rugged touring setup.
-The Tele Guy
Our fearless leader, donnyb, frequently exposes the virtues of rugged touring. That is, using lightweight 3-pin boots or old-school leather tele boots with waxless, metal edged skis with some degree of sidecut. And I’ve always been skeptical. But, after an ill-fated front flip attempt last weekend that led to some major bruising on one leg, suddenly my big stiff boots didn’t feel so good. In fact, I couldn’t wear or ski in them at all. But lo and behold, I could wear a low cut 3-pin boot such as the Alpina BC 1575! So I snagged a pair of our demo skis, Alpina X-Terrains in a 160cm with a Voile HD Mountaineer 3-pin binding and decided to go see what this rugged touring business was all about.
The Denver metro area got a good amount of snow in town early last week, so rather than drive all the way up to the mountains, I headed for Green Mountain Open Space park. Green Mountain is 15 minutes from my house, and has a lot of little sub-ridges that hold good snow where the wind has drifted it in. With pretty mellow slope angles and good snow cover on the summer trails, it seemed like a good spot to try out this kind of gear.
First impressions out on the trail – wow these are light and fast! With the waxless fishscaled base, I could glide and move so much faster uphill than with my 140mm skins on my regular tele touring rig. About half as much weight helped, too. I could instantly see that getting deep into the backcountry would be much more efficient on this type of rig. Once I figured out the technique, I was able to climb surprisingly steep slopes with the fishscales.
I followed the summer road about halfway to the top of Green Mountain when an enticing looking slope to the north caught my eye. Cutting across a gully, I started climbing the slope. I found I needed to switchback much more frequently than I was accustomed to since I didn’t have skins, but climbing the mellow slope (about 20 degrees) was not problem at all. At the top, it sure was nice to not need to takes skins off, tighten boots, put a helmet on, etc, etc.
Ready to ski, looking down at the slope, I was honestly a little nervous. The boots were suddenly feeling awfully floppy, and man the skis looked short! I haven’t skied anything as short as 160cm since I was probably 12. But after a couple shaky turns, I got the hang of it. Yes, you can actually ski on a setup like this! The tracks tell the tale:
So fun, in fact, I blasted back up for another lap, then skied back to the car as the sun set.
Call me a convert. I guess I’m gonna need to get a rugged touring setup.
-The Tele Guy
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