Free Skiing

Nordic Boots, Bindings and Skis: 6.08-lbs

Rando Boots, Bindings and Skis: 7.84-lbs

XC Boots, Bindings and Skis: 8.26-lbs

Downhill Boots, Bindings and Skis: 25.26-lbs

This rando ski setup is amazing!

With my stormtrooper looking boots I climbed up Durango Mountain Resort - known locally as Purg.  I hit the top and skied downhill over to the west chair and then skinned over to Hermosa Park Road and up to the Relay Creek / Cascade intersection on well packed snowmobile trails.  

This is definitely the future of skiing.  It was great doing the climbing and I skinned up a black run at Purg - wish i knew the resort well enough to remember the name.  Heart rate went up and it was a really great workout.  I even did some skate skiing on these on the snowmobile tracks - and while not as fluid as my nordic they did the trick.  In short these uphill skis can do downhill, can do Nordic and can do xc.  The knock is the cost because you can't get light and be cheap.  I was fortunate to get some great support from Pine Needle Mountaineering and the new owners Miles and Jeremy who both wish to grow the sport.  I am running the Dynafit PDG boots on Plum Race 145 bindings on Hagan x-Race Skis, which without discounts would have run me ~$2200 retail.  Miles and Jeremy again THANK YOU!

I did some checking online and was curious how cheap someone could go without adding on too much weight and found that Scarpa is selling their F1 boots now I assume to get rid of them because of the new Alien line.  My buddy Dave up in Crested Butte has 4 years on these and some of the guys up there have modifed the boot to make it lighter.  The velcro strap for example was an option for my PDGs and I did not put it on the boot as it is redundant.  For $279 - wow that is a ridiculous deal.  Since it is an earlier generation boot it adds 350-grams per boot over my setup, or about a 1.5-lbs total.  But people have skied the Grand Traverse with this boot so it's not any thing to sneer at.  

Telemark-Pyrenes is currently offering Fischer Tour RCX + Dynafit Low Tech Radicals for 585 euros and shipping for an additional 45 euros to the USA.  That comes out to $850.  So that is $1130 for this setup and the skis are a hair lighter than mine (680-grams) and the bindings are 40 grams more.  So roughly 1.5-lb more overall with the weight coming from the Scarpa F1s as the skis and bindings are pretty much the same as mine.  Wow.  You would think this setup from a local shop could come even cheaper as they discount packages.  But for a set of ~9.5-lb skis/bindings/boots for $1130 bucks that is pretty cool - a racing mountain bike at that cost is unheard of and this would be race ready.

The only hassle here would be finding skins or having to make your own.  Small hassle as it seems everyone I know makes their own skins now anyway as you can buy rolls of it from C.A.M.P. USA for 1/3rd the cost of fitted skins.

Jeni wants a rando setup and this package is enticing - but I'm going to check with Pine Needle Mountaineering first as it is always better to buy local and support those that support you.