Category: Mother Necessity

Miscellaneous tips and tricks for backcountry skiing.

Technique: Keeping Meidjo’s tour mode locked

One of the annoying flaws with Meidjo is the occasional tendency for the red function stub to pop over the bumper that it rests against when touring. This causes the entire spring-box assembly to be put into turn mode and will inevitably allow it to hook onto the 2nd heel of the boot. The net …

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Changing the claw on 22D’s Outlaw

  Early feedback on 22 Design’s Outlaw, their new NTN binding, indicates that it skis great. Downhill performance was, as hoped, reminiscent of the Hammerhead in position #3 or #4 depending on how strong the spring tension is set to. Touring is also very similar to an Axl, with the same basic limits to range …

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DIY: Making fish-scaled skis

I bought some $30 kids’ skis at my local sports-exchange shop and added some fish-scales to make a waxless base for my 7 year old’s skis to tour with (although he just likes jibbin’ at this point).

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Technique: Modifying TTS Heel Post

The original Telemark Tech System binding was a bit crude but was close enough to yield a glimpse of what the future of telemark bindings might provide. Mark Lengel, the inventor of the system admits that the binding is effectively still a beta binding, but the current incarnation is vastly improved over the first prototype. …

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Modifying NTN for better touring

Update (13nov11): Finally managed to get this revision out on snow. See the very end for the results.. First, I would like to thank Jay (tainted meat) and Andrew (Andrew L) and Mike (MD2020) for donating NTN parts for this experiment. It saved me from destroying my own working bindings as the prototypes were made …

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Quack: Making sunglasses with Duct Tape

You probably thought I meant, repairing sunglasses with duct tape when you read the headline, but you assumed something not stated. I really meant making a pair of sunglasses with duct tape. How do you make sunglasses with duct tape? First, you need to get to the root of the purpose of sunglasses, especially on …

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The Need for Knee Pads

Make no mistake about it, if you telemark, it’s not a matter of if, but when you will need a pair of knee pads to save your precious knees. You can make all the excuses you want about how your stance is tall and you never ski low so your knees aren’t at risk but …

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