Sep 28 2014
One of the better boots to come out last year, with great performance on either side of the boundary line, was Tecnica’s Cochise. It’s a mid-weight boot with a stiff forward flex and good mobility in the cuff for touring. However, it favored feet with average width but a high instep. That meant a …
Sep 26 2014
Ava-Tech is a new company introducing two tools, the SP-1 probe and AvaNet™ cloud platform at the International Snow Science Workshop next week (Sept 29-Oct. 3) in Banff, AB, Canada. To the naked eye the SP-1 is a 150 cm probe with a tip that senses and records pressure as it is driven into the …
Sep 22 2014
It was two seasons ago my preconceived notions about rockered skis, especially the too fat variety, were blown to smithereens. For me, that means anything wider than 110mm at the waist which simply cannot hold sufficient edge for good all round, backcountry skiing. The example was Volkl’s V-Werks Katana, a magical mix of wood core …
Sep 15 2014
In their second year building Alpine Touring boots, Scott made a few changes to address issues with buckles breaking and improve the touring performance of the Cosmos and Celeste boots. The buckle change is disappointing; their ability to hinge out of the way made getting in and out of the boot a simple affair. …
Sep 10 2014
Stanley is transforming itself from a second rate copy cat company of cool camping gear into a top notch source of goodies for camp decadence. The latest evidence of that is their 1-liter Vacuum Coffee System. You still need a stove to get the water hot enough to boil it for making coffee and …
Sep 09 2014
In recent years Dynafit has earned a reputation for producing low volume, high priced boots through their TLT line. Such is the price of trimming weight. Unfortunately those with higher volume feet couldn’t experience the touring freedom they offered. That changes this year with Dynafit’s new Radical boot. It isn’t Dynafit’s lightest, or stiffest …
Sep 02 2014
The rumors of a new 2-pin tech binding from Marker have laid dormant until about two months ago when I caught wind of a junket in Chili to introduce the binding to the world. Very soon I realized threats to job security among people “in the know” must have been very strong as nobody …
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