Jan 24 2015

Ryan Gellert talks about Black Diamond’s Responsibility in Backcountry Safety

Ryan Gellert, then of Black Diamond Equipment.

Ryan Gellert, then of Black Diamond Equipment.

Last January 2014, at the annual Outdoor Retailer Winter show Verde PR teamed up with Emerald Expo to convene a panel of industry leaders to talk about the Business of the Backcountry. In the 1st video in this series, Bruce Tremper discusses the high volume of new backcountry skiers and what that means to avalanche safety, click here to see that.

In today’s video, the third in the series, Ryan Gellert, then with Black Diamond, addresses a similar question as posed to Mike Hattrup in the second video (click here) about a manufacturer of backcountry skiing equipment’s responsibility in backcountry safety education.
Keep making backcountry turns

Jan 23 2015

Scarpa to trim TX from US

 

Scarpa's TX to be unavailable for 2016.

Scarpa’s TX to be unavailable for 2016.

Madsen and I have been scheming for years on ways to grow interest in telemark skiing. We have no illusions about taking over the world in a wave of free heel euphoria, but our best laid plans will come to naught unless the equipment to do the dance remains available.

So imagine our consternation when we learned of yet another telemark boot to be removed from the market for next year. To confirm the rumor, all it took was a visit to Scarpa’s booth showing off next years ski boots. On the shelf facing traffic were the Freedom line of boots, including the new Freedom RS along with the light weight AT offerings like the the F1-Evo, and the Alien series of rando race boots. Inside, spread out on two shelves, were next season’s telemark boots. The line up was disturbing, not for what it showed, but for what was absent — the TX, the lightest, and softest of their NTN boot line with inserts.
Keep making backcountry turns

Jan 20 2015

Alpine Touring Boot Roundup for 2016

 

La Sportiva is light!

La Sportiva is light!

The evolution of Alpine Touring boots marches on with more players in the light is right area and ever more models with tech fittings standard. From the marketing materials send out pre-show, there is nothing revolutionary, but with so many good products already available, who’s crying for a revolution? Steady improvements characterize next years offerings so if you’re in the market for a new boot your options have never been better. If you want your local shop to carry these to try on next year, best to drop by and pester ’em with questions.
Keep making backcountry turns

Jan 17 2015

Meidjo Revised to Fix Production Flaws

Location of the serial number on Meidjo.

The serial number is located on the bottom of the toepiece, and on the box Meidjo comes in. If your binding is higher than AA0140, you have the fix already.

The reports are flooding in and M-Equipment is responding by modifying components of the binding and tightening quality control. Thus, problems that are being reported are being fixed.

Pierre Mouyade, Meidjo’s designer contacted me to say, “Begin January I discover a problem on the low tech. The four pin inside the 4 spring of the low tech [toepiece] were [made of] Stainless steel. It was a mistake to choose that material. The pin are not stiff enough. Some rider deform these pins and some problems appear, mostly in touring mode.”
Keep making backcountry turns

Jan 15 2015

Mike Hattrup on Industry Responsibility

 

hattrup

Mike Hattrup, K2 Skis

Last January 2014, at the annual Outdoor Retailer Winter show Verde PR teamed up with Emerald Expo to convene a panel of industry leaders to talk about the Business of the Backcountry. The questions posed were important and I felt it was important that this seminar be shared beyond the floor of the trade show. See the first video here.

In the second video, backcountry legend Mike Hattrup is quoted back to himself, basically saying it is the job of the backcountry ski industry to promote safety through knowledge and products, and is asked – when a surfboard manufacturer doesn’t carry a warning against shark attacks – why it is the ski industries responsibility and how that can be measured.
Keep making backcountry turns

Jan 14 2015

Review: Scarpa’s F1 Evo

 

Light and always ready to walk, unless you're locked in for turns.

Light and always ready to walk, unless you’re locked in for turns.

The evolution continues with Scarpa’s development of backcountry boots that up the ante for where you go by how you go. With the F1 Evo, they combine their experience with making stiff plastic boots that walk well, and ski well. No, you wouldn’t dare use these boots on the Hannenkahm, at least not with the objective to win a downhill race, but you could rely on them to help you control your skis in the couloir du jour. And lest we forget, they are superb at climbing from the road, up the ridge to the top of that couloir.

BOA Lacing

Three things are exciting about the F1, starting with the use of BOA lacing on the forefoot. This holds your foot snug with micro-adaptability to the shape of the roof of a foot. It also has a huge range of volume adjustment, allowing for adaptability from a low-instep to a moderately high one. The limit to instep height has more to do with the correlation between width and height, so by the time you have a foot with a really high instep, the width is too narrow to even consider this boot.
Keep making backcountry turns

Jan 11 2015

First Look: Marker’s Kingpin

 

Marker Kingpin. Tech toe with six-pack of spring with a Marker Heel.

Marker Kingpin. Tech toe with six-pack of spring with a Marker Heel.

The limited supply of Marker Kingpin bindings have begun showing up around the states. The half dozen pair dedicated to northern California arrived in Truckee a few weeks ago but it wasn’t until last week that a pair was made available to actually ski. Attempts to get a pair directly for a test run fell flat but a serendipitous connection through a back channel were fruitful and I made a single lap tour with them on Castle peak last week with J.Rad and Shano, friends from the Stress Haus.

Conditions were spring-like corn, so any propensity for snow to build up would be purely speculative at this point. I’ll simply say there are very, very few bindings that can’t be made to clog with ice somewhere on their body, but this short tour did not provide the conditions to reveal where that might be with the Kingpin.
Keep making backcountry turns