Gear Homemade DIY Touring Binding

[crgildart]

What? Lol... the toe and heel pieces are pretty big. If you can’t find them, you’re doing something wrong, regardless of how much snow there is. Plus, I can’t imagine dropping them if you take them out one at a time to slide them on. Are you thinking about juggling them or something? After many many years of touring in deep snow on a regular basis and dropping all sorts of gear in snow, I can safely say thats not a concern of mine at all.

Getting the forward pressure right is super simple, even if it was packed with snow, there’s no way you could get it wrong. Have you played with this binding yet? Its pretty obvious when you do.

If you have trouble sliding the binding on the rails because of packed snow, a clip of a voile strap would clear snow in seconds. I’ve used the original CAST for a few years and that older system was much more susceptible to snow packing issues, but it was never an issue.

Sounds like a metric ton of FUD to me.

Perhaps you should ask Doug his thoughts as well. Clearly you've never dropped anything in deep, LIGHT snow. People lose entire skis, Dropping a toe piece can certainly be POOF! Gonna be pretty big problem IF it happened. No worries though, It won't be you stuck up there with only uphill mode on one of the skis to ski down on. Hope she has fun with that..

 

[jmeb]

Perhaps you should ask Doug his thoughts as well. Clearly you've never dropped anything in deep, LIGHT snow. People lose entire skis, Dropping a toe piece can certainly be POOF! Gonna be pretty big problem IF it happened. No worries though, It won't be you stuck up there with only uphill mode on one of the skis to ski down on. Hope she has fun with that..

People lose entire skis while skiing. If you lose an entire ski while transitioning (the only time you'd be risking losing a binding piece), you shouldn't be ski touring in the first place. Besides, if this statement was true, splitboarding would basically not exist.

Exactly how many days have you spent ski touring a deep snowpack in the last 3 seasons?

Now let's ask @Lindahl the same question. I have a sense he knows what he's doing.

 

[Brian Finch]

Keep us civil folks.

 

[Doug Briggs]

Since Brian has chimed in with his remarks about intent and testing, Doug thinks that Brian has realized a workable solution for his application.

 

[Analisa]

I'm with Doug here. I'd be worried about dropping one of the 4 pieces in 4 feet of light snow and not being able to find it. Then there's the odds of getting the forward pressure correct with snow and ice building up on those modified demo tracks during the ascent. High risk hack solution to just spending the money to get the product designed AND TESTED to perform the tasks at hand.

With 4 feet of fresh snow, I’d be more concerned about avalanche danger or even getting very far setting a skintrack. I imagine the final consumer is skiing inbounds on the deepest days of the year.

Icy conditions, on the other hand, could make things eventful. I’ve watched my avalanche probe & water bottle race each other down 2k of vert down the worm flows on Helens on an icy morning (probe won, miraculously recovered both even though my Nalgene is clear, and yes I learned to pack properly without the stash pockets). Still, I’d rather search for a demo binding toepiece than the tiny pins out of a Spark split binding.

Could see this being a perfect fix for a few parent friends who want a light tech setup for their kids (the safe/easy routes are spring volcano tours with 4k+ of gain), but want a good deal of adjustability in the bindings for growing feet & hand-me-down potential.

 

[crgildart]

With 4 feet of fresh snow, I’d be more concerned about avalanche danger or even getting very far setting a skintrack. I imagine the final consumer is skiing inbounds on the deepest days of the year.

Still problematic with more than a foot. But I'm clumsy these days. I guess it might be OK for light touring AND lift served everyday skiing. Not for me though. Don't need extra stuff to shuffle around and put together out in the field. Only touring friendly rig I have is full tele..

 

[Philpug]

Still problematic with more than a foot. But I'm clumsy these days. I guess it might be OK for light touring AND lift served everyday skiing. Not for me though. Don't need extra stuff to shuffle around and put together out in the field. Only touring friendly rig I have is full tele..

So..we won't see you using these in the back bowls of Blue Knob? Noted.

I commend Mr. @Lindahl for his creativity.

 

[crgildart]

So..we won't see you using these in the back bowls of Blue Knob? Noted.

I commend Mr. @Lindahl for his creativity.

That was the last place I was in so deep I had to cross my poles to get back up after falling LOL.. It truly was over 3 feet of fresh snow in a few days FWIW.. Someone lost a phone in that gnar..

 

[Lindahl]

Perhaps you should ask Doug his thoughts as well. Clearly you've never dropped anything in deep, LIGHT snow. People lose entire skis, Dropping a toe piece can certainly be POOF! Gonna be pretty big problem IF it happened. No worries though, It won't be you stuck up there with only uphill mode on one of the skis to ski down on. Hope she has fun with that..

I’ve dropped things all the time in deep light snow, many times on purpose so I didn’t have to hold it when reaching into my pack. I probably spend 30-40 or so days a season in the backcountry in deep light snow. Again, based on lots of experience over many years, I’m not worried in any way about losing a toepiece or a heelpiece in those conditions.

People lose skis when skiing. We’re talking about stopped at a transition and switching over between uphill and downhill in a stationary location. An entirely different situation.

 

[Ken_R]

I have certainly transitioned in spots in deep snow that are not conducive to fiddling with much gear with no good place to step off both skis unless you wanted to sink to your waist. Deal with one ski while the other is supporting you.

But that is not the point. The OP's contraption is a creative solution to making a touring setup that is cheap (if you already have the parts) and light enough on the uphill. I think its very cool.

I might need more popcorn.

 

[scottyb]

Sweet rig, thanks for sharin.

 

[Wilhelmson]

Do all the droppers ever look at their phone while skiing? I'm more afraid that I would screw up the binding. Great idea for kids or others like me who don't tour often except that toe piece is expensive. Don't forget to check your afd height before heading down.

 

[Slim]

This is absolutely a great option for kids, in fact I know I have seen someone else do something similar for a kids set up online.
For kids set ups you don’t care about the weight in the pack, since that will be in the parents pack, so the kids get a skin-up weight similar to a tech binding, while still be able to use a low-release value Kids binding for skiing.

Only challenge for that system is finding kids boots with tech fittings.

Technica has some:
https://www.evo.com/alpine-touring-ski-boots/tecnica-cochise-team-dyn-kids

And Movement:
https://skimo.co/movement-explorer-junior-boots