How do you hike back-country with alpine boots?

 Dynafit ski boots caused big knots to form on the back of my heels twenty some years ago which made it basically impossible to find footware that doesn't cause me pain ever since. Your mileage may vary.

I'll bite that bait.

Telemark has its deficiencies, for sure, but it also has its advantages and its pleasures.

I'd be safer skiing 45+ degrees wih a fixed heel, but i'd be more comfortable touring 10 miles to yurt in teles. Not everyone skis extreme in the backcountry. Not eveyone cares to tour 10 miles to spend a week at a yurt. For those that want the best of all worlds, telemark is an option. It fills a niche in a quiver of snow sliding gear.

Anyone that has skied powder on telemark gear knows that there is nothing quite like it. I prefer to experience all that the backcountry can offer and the only thing I'll exclude from my quiver is a single plank. Unless its a mono ski.  Of course not in the BC, though.

After all, varitety is the spice of life.

MR

I was referring to Dynafit alpine touring bindings, not Dynafit alpine downhill ski boots, which were discontinued many years ago . . . and which are functionally entirely unrelated to Dynafit AT bindings.  (The Dynafit AT binding was invented by two brothers, who would retrofit their interface into Dynafit AT boots, which were of an entirely different design than Dynafit alpine downhill boots back then, or even Dynafit AT boots now.  Once Dynafit learned of this, it bought out the brothers, and attached its name to their binding.  Dynafit eventually became a purely focused AT company, and then was bought up by the climbing company Salewa.)

Tele is the backboard of backcountry. It had the origanal freeing of the heel, allowing you to skin up. and plus tele is the shizznits

Shizznits = 'da bomb'?

fo' sizzle (yes)

Free the heel and free the soul (or is it free the heel and loose your mates!!!)


I regularly ski with a couple of telemarkers and envy everything until I get to the top of the hill and lock my heel down.  But I've still got to give it a try some time.

ski for real. free the heel

 A word to the wise is sufficient. Dynafit AT will cause permanent injury to all who use it. Your feet will look like an old lady's. OK that's several words for the less wise. If this advice saves one skier from mangled feet, then it was worth posting.

infection from ski boots.

also found this

http://www.seattlepi.com/getaways/108323_tele13.shtml

So the defense of tele is:
-- various content-free assertions about how great it is;
-- a six-year-old newspaper article; and,
-- a criticism of Dynafit-branded alpine downhill boots from before Dynafit even bought out the rights to the alpine touring binding that now bears its name.

just try it once and you will see what the deal is. Its like saying you hated spinach as a kid but you never tried it.

Can we all just agree that telemarking is stupid?  For instance, just look at me:


Furthermore, no one cares that you tele.  

I tried it three times -- I had lots of fun.  Not at all stupid.
But tele on big backcountry tours, for anyone cares about efficiency and safety, that is stupid.
(And interesting to see the mix of ski gear while skiing off the summit of Rainier this past Friday -- well, actually, really wasn't much of a "mix" at all...)

why do you think it is not safe? There are plenty of tele bindings that release like apline bindings. so no problem there. The boots are ridged plastics so those are good. what are you worried about? scraping your knee in a turn??

It's obviously addled your sense of direction.  The pointy ends of the skis are supposed to aim DOWN the hill.

I'm sorry Jonathan, I just can't do this.  Epicski is probably the one forum on the intrawebz where I haven't yet had a rollicking AT vs. tele smack-down.  Many times in the past I've devastated Lou, made Andrew cry like a little girl, had TGR maggots plead for mercy, and single-handedly saved TelemarkTips from invading hoardes, and yet as I look back on all that it just makes me kind of sad - AT'ers spirits crushed, their convictions crumbled, and their self-esteem destroyed...  I'm no longer proud of causing all that carnage and fear and waste.  

I know you from other forums, and you seem like a very nice guy.  I've just lost the blood-lust.  So you should take your training bindings, and your cares about efficiency and safety, and "Yeah, I tried it but..." and leave the dance and danger and devotion to those others who are foolishly drawn to the nexus of art and science and the snowy mountains that tele represents.  Feel good about your choice.  I'm hanging up my guns.  




Edited by Bob Lee - 7/10/2009 at 12:53 pm GMT

Thanks Bob Lee,

I was about to launch my own defense, but you've outed the intolerant ____ (fill in the blank as you choose). Thank you
 
It is all skiing after all.

All anyone needs to know when it comes to choice of equipment, is not to exceed their own capablilities on whatever equipment they choose. I've seen people tumble on tele and I've seen people tumble on alpine.

It's not the gear, its the skier, that matters.

MR

Of the following four characteristics:
-- extremely lightweight in a static sense (i.e., just when placed on a scale)
-- absolutely zero swing or "lifted" weight (i.e., the binding stays put on the ski when skinning, as opposed to having some portion lifted up by the boot on each and every stride)
-- resistance-free pivot (and over the full range of skinning motion)
-- calibrated safety release (especially important in potential avalanche terrain)
... no other binding besides Dynafit has even three of these four characteristics.

This is quite an entertaining discussion today.  For the sake of continued entertainment I'll add my experiences.
I began many years ago hiking in ski boots.


Then I got some silevretta bindings from a Swiss friend.  I matched them with some Koflach Ultra climbing boots which were great for crampons & skinning, but not too reliable for staying in the bindings.


Soon we discovered telemark & spent many years using Asolo Extreme boots, skinny Atomic OT skis & Chouinard bindings.



Eventually it was time to get with the times & I began snowboarding.  No splitboard for me, but I did get some snowshoes for when the snow was deep.  When I went to upgrade my tele setup I found that the weight difference was negligable & ended up with Fritschi bindings, Nordica Rondo boots & some Olin Selkirks for skis.


Over recent years I have upgraded & varied this set-up, & still use the same boots.  They are comfortable for short hikes off the snow, but I will always opt for regular flexible shoes when I have the chance.

What you ride & how you hike is an individual choice.  There are give & takes with everything I have tried.  My most recent setup is a pair of Marker Barons that I use my Lange plug boots with.  They are fine for short sidecountry tours, but I sure don't like walking in them.


To each his own,
JF

Well said, 4ster.

Hearing and sharing opinions and experiences is what I come to Epic for. To learn and sometimes enlighten.

I like your reader's digest ski progression story, too! Nice pics.

MR

Time for the darkside video.....



Whatever gets your grin on and your pulse up - 'zall good!

4cznskier,

That's a fun video. I'm fairly new to Epic and ski forums in general so had never seen it before.

To the OP,

How you deal with hiking and skiing where there are no lifts has many answers. The more options you have in you quiver, the more fun you'll probably have.

MR

I know, I know.  I probably should have hit that switch but I was on tele gear and so I guess I wasn't ready for a big mountain tour.  Here's a shot of the run from below - you can sort of see our tracks:

Nice line, nice turns.
 

MR
 

"What you ride & how you hike is an individual choice.  There are give & takes with everything I have tried."

-  Backcountry ski gear inevitably entails a tradeoff between the up and the down.  And many (many) choices are available these days in boots and skis that span the entire spectrum.  For example, production boots range from the ultralight Dynafit DyNA to the nearly twice as heavy BD Factor and Dynafit Titan.  Skis range from Trab race models under 4 pounds (per pair) to skis . . . three times as heavy?  Twice as wide?  And when it comes to other backcountry skiing gear – packs, avy rescue gear, clothing, sleeping gear – the range of choices is overwhelming.

-         
- Except for bindings.  Unless you really (really) want to snowboard or make telemark turns, the only sensible choice for backcountry skiing is, well, which Dynafit model you prefer.  (Or the new G3 Meetu binding.)  Any other binding is much heavier in a static sense, much heavier in a dynamic sense (since you have to pick up a portion of the binding with each stride), and also often nonreleaseable if you’re into tele (as well as often – though increasingly less often these days -- providing resistance on every stride). 

-         
- Of the skiers high up on Rainier this past week, I saw all sorts of boots, skis, skins, packs, climbing gear, etc.  But almost no diversity of bindings – well, unless you count Dynafit Speed/Classic, Dynafit Comfort, Dynafit Vertical ST, G3 Dynafit Imitation . . . Also, when I had a biz trip to Alaska this past March and hired a guide for ski touring after the biz portion was over, he noted that at his AMGA ski mountaineering guide exam, everyone had Dynafits.  Everyone.

As for the details of the litany of setups (climber’s approach setup > old skool tele > snowboard > heavy AT > even heavier sidecountry setup):

“Nordica Rondo boots”

-          - The original Nordica TR 9 boots, and the successor TR 10 and 12, are perhaps the worst randonnee boots ever made:  heavy for heading up , and very soft for skiing down.  Kind of an impressive worst-of-both-worlds combination.

“Eventually it was time to get with the times & I began snowboarding.  No splitboard for me, but I did get some snowshoes for when the snow was deep. 

-          - Slowshoes are making all these other setups look good by comparison.

Edited by Jonathan Shefftz - 10/24/09 at 1:51pm

Don't worry Bob, I'm just joking with you; I'm all too aware that most of the seemingly best places to speed have got the worst death traps hidden in them somwhere, often at the bottom.  That's what makes finding a narrow steep without that trap so great.

I think AT seems best, but no way can I afford the setup. A coworker has just offered me a pair of X-country skis from a group his neighbour gave him. 

Heck I would be happy with leather boots and cable bindings.  You know, where you would run the cable under the clip near the heel for downhill and only under the clip near the toe for touring.  Yeah you can't quite power a tight turn with those ankle-high leather boots, but you can make long radius SG or DH turns

Now all I need to do is figure out how to install a clip to keep the heels  on cross country SHOES locked down.

Oh I know, I'm just bragging.