Nov 20 2015

Pt. II: Taming the Arrogance Avy Dragon

 
Continued from Taming Your Avalanche Dragon, published 17nov15.

Arrogance

Reviewing options as a group on the Sierra High Route.

Reviewing options as a group on the Sierra High Route.

There is a big difference between confidence and arrogance. A confident winter backcountry guide or enthusiast also has an ear to listening to other people’s input. There is a willingness on the part of the confident individual to welcome new information from anyone in the group. Conversely, a person with the arrogance dragon will say, “I am/know the best” and believe it. Paired with this belief — that we are the most skilled or qualified — is the complete inability to receive input from others. To us, there is only one way to do something, or the opinion we hold is the only one worth considering. We might scoff at other people’s ideas and mock them as substandard or stupid. Rooted in the arrogance dragon is the fear that we are not good enough and reject other input because we are too insecure to hear other perspectives.
Keep making backcountry turns

Nov 18 2015

PR: AvaTech launches crowd sourced AvaNet

Desktop view of an Avanet topo map showing high risk zones and the path followed.

Desktop view of an Avanet topo map showing high risk zones and the path followed.

Editors Note: The following press release comes from Backbone Media, Avatech’s public relations firm. Ordinarily I’d rewrite the information a bit, but this is a fairly straight forward announcement of a software platform that has the potential to dramatically improve the understanding of the snowpack in regions that we like to ski. The key to that understanding is for people to use the tools and platform Avatech has developed. Similar tools have been developed before, but they are aimed at avalanche professionals.

That may sound like an endorsement, and I do applaud the theory of what they are offering, but I have not personally used an AvaTech probe, or Avanet, their platform for sharing snow pack observations in the form of data collected by their probe, or any other mode of observation they allow. Just sharing a whole bunch of information may simply be, in the near term, a case of information overload. But with time and some collective brainstorming this public database of snow information could be transformed from mere knowledge, albeit too much information, into a system of understanding that empowers better decisions about what, where, and when to ski. That is not to say this system has that power yet.
Keep making backcountry turns

Nov 17 2015

Taming Your  Avalanche Dragons

Skier triggered avalanche on Mt. Judah, California.

Skier triggered avalanche on Mt. Judah, California.

Over the last ten years there have been fantastic advances in the field of avalanche safety through research and technical development. Additions made to snow stability evaluations like ‘fracture character’ during the ‘compression test’ deepen our awareness of what is happening with the snow. There have also been the developments in terrain assessment tools, which help us to make choices while traveling in avalanche terrain. Fruitful advances in avalanche response: digital avalanche transceivers, smart probes, and better shovelling techniques like the ‘V shaped snow conveyer belt’ make it more efficient by considering the avalanche subjects’ needs, like not being stepped on and having the air pocket collapse.

When I look at all of the effort, research hours, and costs that have been invested in avalanche safety, I am frustrated that people are still dying out there each winter; even some of the best — like Robson Gmoser. The fact is that even the best in the game need to play it safer somehow.
Keep making backcountry turns

Nov 03 2015

Inserts: Weak link of the 2-Pin Tech System

 
What started out as a simple test of the Meidjo, a telemark binding with a 2-pin toe and NTN clamp, turned into an investigation of tech toe inserts and what makes them good or bad. Tech systems are an interaction of components on a petite scale, so small variations can have big consequences. While my initial interest was spurred through examination of a telemark adaption to Dynafit’s 2-pin tech toe, the general conclusions are the same, although the application may be different.

Staying connected when you want with a 2-pin tech system requires tight tolerances - especially with the boot insert.

Staying connected when you want with a 2-pin tech system requires tight tolerances – especially with the boot insert.

Everyone that needs to know figures out pretty quickly that tech bindings are not as solid as alpine bindings; they’re more prone to pre-release. That said, they work remarkably well and, contrary to first impressions, are quite solid and amazingly bombproof. The recent flurry of innovation with tech bindings has even eliminated a lot of the tendency for releasing before an alpine binding would, but not completely. There remains a level of uncertainty inherent in the tech system which can be attributed primarily to the boot inserts.
Keep making backcountry turns

Oct 21 2015

Tele Gear for Newbies

A hard turn is good to find. Photo by Halsted Morris.

A hard turn is good to find.
Photo by Halsted Morris.

 
There’s a really good chance you’ll think of my advice on picking gear for telemarking as just another died in the wool leatherneck recommending old-fashioned values just because that’s the way he did it. You’d be right, except that everyone I’ve ever seen who could tele well, all of ’em, had to go through the school of hard knocks to figure out the nuances involved in making a sweet telemark turn look ridiculously easy and sexy.

In other words, don’t take my word for it, ask around and you’ll see, the hard way is the best way. Besides, let’s face some facts my friend. You’re not interested in telemarking because it’s easy; anybody who has seen it done knows it’s not easy. And while you might nod your head in agreement now, trust me, if you do take the hard road to learning how to tele you’ll know you did because you’ll question that you ever agreed with me that it could possibly be worth the amount of flailing involved to figure it out. To which I can only reply, same as ever, it is worth it.

That is, of course, trusting and assuming you persevere and figure it out. If you don’t, well, there’s always AT which stands for Already Tele’d, or Abandoned Tele for those who can’t. 😉
Keep making backcountry turns

Oct 13 2015

Review: Volkl’s VTA88

Even with a pair of one of the heaviest alpine tech bindings mounted to them, Marker’s Kingpin, Volkl’s new VTA88 is a bonafide welterweight. Without bindings you might even consider them to be featherweight, but that would suggest an absence of muscle that in reality, the VTA has no shortage of.

Volkl Tour Alpine - a skinny Katana. 127-88-106

Volkl Tour Alpine – a skinny Katana. 127-88-106


Think of the VTA88 as a slim version of what Volkl pioneered with their 112mm waisted V-Werks Katana ski; a ski that is undeniably light for its size, yet nimble and damp despite a preponderance of carbon fiber in the construction. Thus, the VTA88 is a ski that defies belief, weighing in at a skosh over a kilogram (2 lbs., 4 oz) in the 170cm length.
Keep making backcountry turns

Oct 08 2015

Scott to add tech inserts to Voodoo

Yup, that's a Scott Voodoo clamped to a Meidjo with tech inserts in the toe.

Yup, that’s a Scott Voodoo clamped to a Meidjo with tech inserts in the toe.


Keep making backcountry turns