C Dostie

Author's posts

1st Look: Ski Baskets with a lift

  One of the new directions in ski pole development has been a recognition of how limited the function of most baskets are. Yes, they provide a resistance to pole planting in soft snow but when it comes to using that disk for anything that requires a bit of backbone for support they’re next to …

Keep making backcountry turns

Review: Volken’s BC Ski guidebook for WA

  There’s another guidebook for backcountry riders in Washington. This time the author is noted guide Martin Volken, a Swiss guide whose training in the Alps has served him well in the glaciated environs of Washington’s volcanos and Cascade range. The book begins with an historical retrospective that lends insight to knowledge that exists only …

Keep making backcountry turns

Review: High Trails “Post-It” Climbing Skins

Update 27aug17 — Glue verdict after 4 seasons There’s another “glueless” climbing skin now available from High Trails. Like other claims of glueless, this claim in pure marketing spin, of the 180° variety. They most definitely use a glue, but it is a silicon based adhesive that acts more like a Post-It, especially compared to …

Keep making backcountry turns

Sugar Bowl adapts to fitness skinning

  When Sugar Bowl announced it was changing their Uphill Skinning from free to paid I wasn’t surprised. The buck and a half price ($149 in Federal Reserve monopoly notes) seems a bit of an over reaction to poor revenues for the season, but saying it was because of costs associated with skinners who weren’t …

Keep making backcountry turns

Whither goest tele?

  The word from retailers in 2014 is in stark contrast to the claims of 2-million telemark skiers from SIA. Nobody knows how many active telemark skiers remain, but three things are true: First, there aren’t 2-million or even half a million telemark skiers left in the US, but there are still a couple hundred …

Keep making backcountry turns

Review: Crispi’s NTN boots – Shiver & Evo

  It has been hard to find choices in tele boots recently. Garmont shot themselves in the foot and Scott has been slow to pick up the ball. Under their breath retailers say they can’t give BD boots away. Now I’m not complaining about Scarpa being the only easy choice for tele boots out there, …

Keep making backcountry turns

BCTalk: BC Dog Days in Tahoe

  We were doing it “doggie-style” today with my BC canine buddy Jake — mchin

Keep making backcountry turns