“Look, I blew you off the other day because I’m terrible at mornings man.”
“Don’t sweat it. You got the goods, I had to be chained to a desk, so good call.”
“Where can we go that’s close?”
“I know a good avy chute with a cornice hanging above it. Excellent line if it holds. I think it will.”
Next morning it’s me making the call five minutes late to admit I’m running late. “I’m on the road, be there in five,” I say.
We met at The Back Country, Truckee’s local backcountry action spot. Tim transferred his gear to the van, and we headed down the road. 15 minutes later we were putting skins on and clambering up the wall of snow marking the edge of the street.
Keep making backcountry turns
Mar 17 2011
Ball of Foot Pressure in a Deep Telemark Turn?
I stand in my workshop hacksaw in hand, old tele boots strewn about the floor. A pair of old gara’s sit on the work bench surrounded by plastic shavings with a freshly cut gash through the bellows. Am I a deranged AT skier acting out every Tele skiers worst nightmare? Of course not, I’m a deranged Tele skier chasing my own dream, but how did I end up here? What am I doing? Let me explain…
My Homebrew TTS binding
I recently mocked up my own version of the TTS binding in my workshop. I spent some time skiing and studying my TTS and other bindings and came to some interesting conclusions about the flaws in the current telemark boot/binding interface as well as modern technique that lead to where I am today.
I took the binding out for it’s shakedown cruise a few weekends ago. Day one it was like making tele turns on an AT binding. I am using the first generation Scarpa TX boots and the stiffness along with a somewhat soft spring in my heel tube made it impossible to break the boot at the bellows. After day 1 I poured some boiling water in the toes of my boots and flexed them for a while. Day 2 I was able to get the ball of my foot down and start making some “real” telemark turns.
The lighter springs in my binding and free pivot at the toe made it really easy to roll up on the boot toe without lots of attention to rear foot weighting. If I kept my stance tight and tall I was able to keep the ball of my foot firmly on the ski but any bit of a deep tele turn (even a compact one) and up on the toes I would go. So I started looking over the system and boot binding interface and things immediately became apparent. With a locked cuff on a modern plastic tele boot it is impossible to do a “deep” tele turn and keep the ball of the foot on the ski. Whether you are on a 75mm binding, NTN binding, TTS binding, anything, it just can’t be done. Let’s take a quick look at why.
Keep making backcountry turns
Mar 14 2011
Too much snow? Not with a Honda!
Honda HS928 Review
When winter is raging in Truckee, the house we live in is the house from Hell. If Hell freezes over, this is the sort of bungalow its residents will be subjected to. At least, that’s what it feels like.
Looks cute, eh? Now consider the height of the walls along the driveway relative to the height of the roofline.
Click to enlarge.
It always waits for an inopportune moment to remind you it’s time to clear the snow again. And again and again and again and again. I love it. After all, it’s why I moved to Truckee, so I could blow snow instead of skiing in it.
Keep making backcountry turns
Mar 10 2011
Review: Voile Switchback
Without a doubt, Voile’s Switchback is my favorite telemark binding these days. It adorns three of the five pair of skis in my quiver — a pair of Karhu Guides that take a cruise through the backyard woods about 4 times a week, a pair of Atomic RT-86s for all manner of turns, and also a pair of RT-80s for spring tours when the 86ers are overkill. It has the most important features I require in a telebinding, and the ones it doesn’t have I don’t need (knock on wood).
Voile’s Switchback is a great binding.
Weight: 3 lbs./pr • ROM: 50°+ • MSRP: $279
Keep making backcountry turns
Mar 07 2011
The Religion of Weather
For a skier, watching the weather and waiting for great gobs of precipitation exacts the faith of a farmer. I don’t know that I’ve ever met a skiing atheist. Everyone seems to have his or her own prayers and promises and sky-gazed mutterings that are supposed to bring on the clouds.
It’s as timeless as anything on this planet, the western, purple, rolling appearance of a storm, and the eastern rising of the sun—as old as any idea of God. And who’s to say that the shafts of gold light that break through the gray of a day at four p.m. are not the corridors through which divinity is descending? That we are not the powdered pilgrims sucking up all the sunsets we can for some definition of soul? It is a miracle, that’s for sure, the way each pattern of cirrus and cumulus and stratus can conjure a different emotion a separate image of the world.
Keep making backcountry turns
Mar 06 2011
Author: Peter Kray
Before the next post goes out, let me introduce Peter Kray. There are a lot of writers in the world, especially on the web, who can only dream of words spilling out of our brains onto paper the way Peter Kray weaves a story with a view.
Peter Kray researching an article on Sorcerer Lake Lodge.
Click to enlarge.
He sent it in, and the rest is the history of our working friendship spanning over 15 years. Pete wrote some of, if not the sweetest words ever published in Couloir to the skiing world. Give him a keyboard and let him run free and you’ll be right there with him in thought if not in deed as he wanders through the wilderness, sharing thoughts on the climb and the road back home. He evokes the evisceral strings of the heart like he’s playing a spiritual harp.
Keep making backcountry turns
Mar 03 2011
Turns with Pepper John
I don’t remember how I got in to a conversation with Pepper John. That isn’t really his name. I never found out what his last name was, but John was his first name. He happened to be at The Back Country shop in Truckee at the same time when I dropped by to meet my friend Sigward before heading out for a ski tour. Somehow we got in a conversation and ended up inviting him with us to Pepper’s run. Hence I call him Pepper John.
Pepper John cruises Tahoe chowder.
Click to enlarge.
It was the second warm day in a row so dry powder would be unlikely, but soft like whipped cream would be easy to find. We ended up spreading out as a group, Pepper John and I, then Sigward and Brittany. Sigward was having pain with his boots on the climb again so he lagged behind. Since Pepper John couldn’t read my lips through the back of my head, conversation on the skin track was near impossible so I enjoyed setting track guilt free to the rhythm of my Zen player.
Keep making backcountry turns
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