According to Dave Rintala, owner of Pacific Crest Heli-Guides, “PCHG will expand their successful snowcat operation in Coldstream Canyon to include freshies in a zone north of I-80, south of the Sierra Buttes, and west of Mt. Lola and Castle Peak. An A-Star helicopter, courtesy of Heli-Tahoe, a Lake Tahoe sight seeing company, will shuttle skiers from Truckee airport to secret stashes on the weather side of the Pacific Crest with typical snow depths more than six feet.

Two attempts to bring helicopter skiing to the Sierra since the 1970s have been unable to obtain permits from the Forest Service who bowed to protests by backcountry skiers, often led by Snowlands Network.

“We chose the land we did for a couple of reasons, said Rintala.

“First, we wanted to avoid any confrontations with other users, so we steered clear of popular backcountry areas. Besides, those areas tend to be dedicated wilderness areas, or on forest service land. Secondly, we wanted to avoid the permit system.”

Indeed, getting a permit is a risky, expensive process with a history of failure in Socialist California’s save-the-planet, control-everything atmosphere.

Unlike their predecessors, Pacific Crest Heli-skiing will use a patchwork of private lands, not public forest service land. Obtaining permission to use the land is a perfect example of how private parties can come to an equitable agreement faster than a committee, or worse, a government bureaucracy.

“They make a little money to help pay their property taxes, and we get to make fresh tracks on their land. It’s a win-win for everyone,” said Rintala. Those agreements give Pacific Crest Heli Skiing access to more than 100,000 acres. The total acreage for all 14 skier areas surrounding lake Tahoe is less than 25,000 acres.

It sounds impressive, but from a backcountry skiers perspective this poses little threat; it isn’t prime territory due to an overall low elevation, and the distance from trailheads.

Marcus Libkind, founder of Snowlands Network agrees the land appears to be legally inaccessible without the property owners permission, and is not in an area frequented by skiers or snowshoers.

Personally, I hope they’re successful and can give a lot of folks luxury access to fresh tracks.

The operation will be limited to a maximum of 16 guests per day with a ratio of one guide per four guests. The cost structure will be based upon flight time rather than vertical feet allowing like-minded guests to customize their experience based on their budget, their desire to ski/ride as much vertical as possible and/or their desire to explore a variety of different zones. Full day trips will start at $899 per person.

See the Pacific Crest Heli-Guides program here

—Craig Dostie

Serendipitously the mad Josh Madsen, le editor for Telemark Skier Magazine, asked me to be on the lookout for images from when interest in telemarking was first catching fire in America. In Europe it was ski mountaineering A.T. style but stateside we had to come to it our own way. Nordic skiing had just experienced a boom in the 70s so America’s backcountry began courting converts with the telemark dance.

Pictured below is William Wilson, surrounded by the state of the art in backcountry technology in 1992. Cell phones were finally small enough to carry in the backcountry; this beauty only weighed 4 pounds and the battery lasted two, maybe three hours. Coverage wasn’t so good, but being perched over the Los Angeles basin didn’t hurt , nor did a full 5 watts of power (notice the full size antenna). Kazama Outbacks defined the classic shape and width of the day—straight and narrow. Bindings were usually 3-pin, but the Rainey SuperLoop, the original with elastomer tubing for spring tension, had just raised the bar on how much control a tele binding could deliver. Plastic tele boots were only a half-baked dream, but we could feel their presence in the not too distant future.

Ramer self arrest grips gave added confidence where the leather subtracted it. Leather work gloves gave protection from the abrasiveness of fast corn snow, weren’t too hot for use above 8,000′ in Los Angeles or Riverside counties, and had a superior anti-theft veneer that never washed off. White climbing skins were a known aberration and those straps dangling from the SuperLoops were safety straps that wrapped around your lower leg and could be yanked off with a single deft pull, but hold otherwise.

Can you guess where this was shot?

What a bunch of kooks! In this short vid Kaj Bune and Ted Steudel show up at a ski resort, then proceed to make turns and turn heads dressed in their Dreamwalker sleeping bags. Okay, it’s comical and he got my attention.

When I swung by the Exped booth at the recent summer OR show I had to ask Kaj to give me the real lowdown on the nutcase sleeping bag. It turns out this isn’t a new idea for Exped. The original concept was first introduced in 1998 as the Wallcreeper, something obviously aimed at adrenalin crazed climbers but not for more normal people. Or so I thought until Kaj took the time to explain.

In a nutshell, how many times have you wished you could wear your sleeping bag when you had to get up at three in the morning to take a leak? Instead, you probably lay awake for an hour hoping your bladder could hold on until dawn, then gave up, left the warmth of your bag to endure a few minutes cold for some relief. Or how many times have you sat around camp with your sleeping bag wrapped around you but there was always a gap where the cold crept in? Or you simply didn’t want to leave the warmth of your bag to get breakfast going, so you didn’t leave on time and didn’t make the summit. The list of examples could go on and on.

The Dreamwalker is a rectangular shaped, down-filled sleeping bag with a hood, a full length zipper, zipper slots for your arms, and a cinch cord to seal the bottom. Want to read before nodding off in your tent, or you forgot something in our pack? Just stick your arms out. Need to move around? Loosen the cinch cord at the bottom, pull it up to your waist, re-cinch and let it fall to your calves, add shoes and walk (or ski) wherever you please. It’s only kooky compared to the silly way we accept the limited functionality of the ubiquitous mummy-shaped sleeping bag.

If you’re like me, you’ve been dreaming of this bag for years – and just like me I’ll bet your first impression upon seeing one is – this is a crazy idea. From here on out though every time I go camping I’m going to find moments when I wish I had one of these. The final bit of functionality that makes this a must have item is the rectangular shape and the full-length zipper. The rectangular shape means I can sleep with my legs apart, a limitation with mummy bags that has frustrated me forever. That’s a nice feature, but it’s only half of why this bag is on my must have list now. With the full length zipper the entire bag can be unzipped, turning it in to a down comforter for two. That’s a feature my wife can get behind too.

There are three models of Dreamwalker, two down and one synthetic. The synthetic version doesn’t have the arm holes, so it really doesn’t qualify as a Dreamwalker. The down versions use 750 fill down. Not the loftiest down available, but 750 fill is still premium quality and better than any of the old down bags in this kids personal collection. It’s plenty warm without having to pay top dollar for state of the art loft properties. Draft tubes insulate and prevent leaking around all the zippers. The shell is a lightweight ripstop nylon. They come in large and medium sizes with temperature ratings around freezing.

Dreamwalker 650
Weight: 50 oz.
Rating: -6C/20F
MSRP: $355

Dreamwalker 450
Weight: 41 oz.
Rating: 1C/35F
MSRP: $300

Exped’s website here.

There are three models; the carbon-fiber Ultra-Distance (MSRP $150), the Distance (MSRP $100), an aluminum economy version, and the Distance FL pole (MSRP $120), with an aluminum shaft and a Flick-Lock™ upper section to provide 20cm of length adjustment. The grips are made of EVA foam rubber which is super comfortable with a grippy, spongy rubber with a nice round top for palming and a strap that is easily adjusted with Velcro. At first look it would seem that these poles could be easily adapted to backcountry skiing, especially splitboarding, except for two gotchas. First, BD says they aren’t tough enough to withstand crashing on them sideways, an inevitable occurance with skiing or snowboarding. Secondly, the teeny baskets they come with would need to be replaced with a ski basket. To do that requires replacing the entire tip, not a trivial procedure, nor one BD intends to offer or stand by. Bummer for now, but who knows if/when this concept will migrate to the skiing realm.

The z-pole design allows for compact storage.

By and large Lou was spot on. The exceptions were Scarpa and Garmont who had their full line of ski boots available to view and fondle, but true to the summer focus, those boots were largely ignored.

The most intriguing news of the show must remain a rumor, but it does indicate that there is hope for the long term survival of the New Telemark Norm boot/binding system.

It appears that at least a few people have been thinking of alternative ways to implement use of the new sole of NTN boots with a binding that may or may not violate Rottefella’s patent on use of the second heel. As ever, this is another combination of existing concepts that threaten to provide power on par with Hammerhead, true free-pivot touring and all for less than the current tele benchmark of three pounds per pair. If these ideas are successfully developed there may be an alternative NTN binding available in as little as two years.

It has been my position for the past two years that NTN has fallen short on fulfilling its promise as a way to provide a ski mountaineering worthy telemark system. Lots of folks discount the necessity for ski mountaineering versatility but forget that this was the driving force for its development, or so we were led to believe.

NTN boots have the same toe and heel dimensions as AT boots which makes them compatible with most crampons and better for walking on dry trails, or scrambling on rock. However, that same mountaineering versatility is sadly lacking in the lone telebinding option since the touring range of motion for Rottefella’s NTN binding is only 30 degrees (29.5 actually). In launching NTN Rottefella has emphasized the improved downhill performance, safety release and ease of entry. The free-pivot has been reduced from the introductory 40 degrees to only 30. It is good enough for slackcountry performance, but is inadequate for long tours or breaking trail in deep snow.

Rottefella is reluctant to invest more money until they have recouped their investment in the development of NTN. Backcountry telemarkers are weary of compromise and more inclined to stick with 75mm technology that provides several free pivot options and plenty of power (though not as much edging power as NTN). The only way I see NTN gaining serious momentum is for Rottefella to not only allow, but encourage some competition. So far, every manufacturer who has contacted Rottefella about licensing the patent has been declined. It is understandable that Rottefella wants to gain some momentum before opening the floodgates of competition.

While manufacturers love to point out that most telemarkers ski in-bounds they are overlooking the fact that the soul of telemarking remains rooted in the backcountry. Therefore, unless a telemark binding addresses backcountry versatility as well as downhill performance it is not a compelling offering, especially at a cost of around $1000. Without competition to spur further development (as in backcountry performance, lighter weight, greater touring range of motion), NTN will languish. With luck, the rumors will blossom and the promise of NTN will be fulfilled, though not by its founder.

Even though summer activities will be the focus of the majority there will be plenty of companies there with a year round focus and I’ve always found a nugget or two of information for the coming ski season to be had in the air-conditioned safety of the Salt Palace. If there’s anything worth passing on, I’ll try to start doing so in a timely manner. Until then, stand by…

Two months ago three decades of slides became the object of pruning. Been going through the boxes of seconds that I’ve held onto thinking I might use them some day. It’s been an interesting walk down memory lane, and completely underscores the stupidity of lugging around boxes of celluloid that were relegated to the dust bin long ago. If I were ruthlessly efficient I’d just toss the boxes into the trash, but the part of me that believed there was value in that film demanded I give every image a second look before tossing it.

One of the nuggets recovered is below. I was reminded of its existence yesterday when someone posted a thread on telemarktips about how hard learning to telemark is. There are lots of good tricks for learning to tele. My two faves are simple exercises to control the natural tendency of your hands to be in the wrong place. Someone once told me “if your hands are in the wrong place, your feet can’t do what they’re trying to do.” On the otherhand, when you’re learning to telemark, heck even after you’ve learned to telemark, falling is a regular experience so my advice to Butch was to recognize that falling is not failing, it’s just part of the telemark deal.

With that in mind, knowing how to do a should-roll turn can be an important safety maneuver. Below is a good example. Notice the excellent positioning of the hands, head and shoulder for sending this under appreciated trick. If you can get your hands and head to anticipate the correct movement, your body will follow.

A perfectly executed Shoulder-Roll Turn. Free Heels advised.

Against America’s tidal wave of enthusiasm for Telemark, Paul was adamant that Alpine Touring (AT) was the way, not Nordic. It was an uphill battle all the way. Steve Barnett’s book “Cross-Country Downhill” distilled the enthusiasm for backcountry skiing in 1976, and his choice of telemark gear cast the mold for those who followed. He was just following Ric Borkovec, who chose Nordic as a rehab option to a ski injury, and then found exhilaration in the freedom it provided. Others, like Doug Robinson, Paul Parker, and Alan Bard began to wax eloquent on the telemark turn and the die seemed cast. When the first all-plastic telemark boot arrived, the Terminator, American interest in AT practically dissolved.

Paul Ramer never wavered. He knew that alpine skiing would remain the major discipline because he wasn’t promoting cross-country skiing with downhill turns thrown in, he was promoting downhill skiing with a free-heel thrown in for mountaineering caliber cross-country mobility outside the resorts. Unfortunately, he was about 20 years ahead of his time and the fruit of his labors and ideas didn’t catch fire in America until the last years of his life.

My introduction to Paul came as it did for most of us, through his binding. The mountains beckoned, I responded and in short order knew I wanted a binding that provided everything I had in my alpine bindings — locked heel performance and safety release — plus a free-heel for skinning uphill. The Ramer Classic looked like an erector set sort of contraption, but once I accepted it was the best option at the time, my faith in its performance was never disappointed.

It led, inevitably to my own efforts to proselytize ski mountaineering through my involvement with a section of southern California’s Sierra Club, The Alpine Ski Touring Committee, a group led by my personal mentor, John Wedberg, which led to the creation of a newsletter, Le Chronicle du Couloir, which became Couloir magazine.

While most readers of Couloir were of the telemark persuasion, that was only because at the time 80% of American backcountry skiers were using telemark gear. Throughout it all I believed as Paul Ramer did, that the future was with Alpine Touring equipment. It didn’t require any new skiing skills, just a new binding and climbing skins.

In fact, what few people realize is that part of the motivation for starting Couloir was, despite my own eventual preference for telemark, to promote the sport of ski mountaineering all the way to the extreme level, for which alpine equipment is clearly superior. While telemark gear has shown it can keep up, it has not raised the bar for performance in the ski mountaineering realm. Besides, Paul’s main point, that it was simply easier for more people was also undeniable. That premise, more than anything else was why I chose to promote the alpine aspect of backcountry skiing because only by making the switch to backcountry skiing easy, which AT gear does, could the sport hope to achieve any sort of momentum and viable growth.

Thus, in launching EarnYourTurns.com it seems fitting to start at the beginning, with a tribute to one of the men who helped make the sport what it is today, and who was instrumental in my involvement, even the very inspiration for the “earn your turns” mantra.

Herewith, a rerun of an interview with Paul Ramer, first published in Couloir magazine Vol. XII-5, Spring 2000. (click here for a reformatted PDF of that original article).

Paul Ramer: Crazy, like a fox.
By Craig Dostie
Originally published in Couloir, vol. XII-5, Spring 2000

Perhaps the most common characteristic of genius is being ahead of the times. It that’s so, then Paul Ramer entered the new millennium long ago.

If there is one thing you can say about Paul it’s that he isn’t afraid to stand behind crazy ideas or products that no one had ever heard of before but that he’s convinced people will appreciate. Paul’s passion for the sport has fueled a genius for invention that spawned over a dozen patents for backcountry products that had never before been considered necessary. Some 20-plus years later, we consider many of these inventions standard equipment. Most notable among these is the heel elevator, an integral part of his most popular invention, the Ramer Classic binding.

The Classic had several versions, culminating in the MT-2000. Ahead of its time in the late ‘70s, production ceased on Ramer bindings in 1995. But key design elements live on. The MT-2000 heel mechanism can now be found in Fritchi’s Diamir. The classic ball-and-socket retention system at the toe is now in the Dynafit binding system, only inverted.

Ramer Assault Snowshoes™, stamped from metal and patented in 1981, have emerged in a plastic version called Verts™. Like the original, they climb snow like crampons climb ice—fast! He developed a self-arrest grip, admittedly for the few, proud, or strange among us, which is now available on Life Link’s Variant ski pole line. Ramer made poles too, only with a push-button adjustment. They whistled in the wind but were hell to break.

Though he didn’t invent it, Ramer developed the Echo-1, a cheap, effective (though crude by modern standards) avalanche beacon. He knew enough to develop a better beacon, but his much touted revision never made it to market.

In the ‘80s, Alpine Research catalogs were the update report on Ramer product revisions, plus all the widgets Paul thought you might need, from climbing skins to earplugs. His ’86 catalog showed a Euro snowmobile for sale. At the time we all scoffed and thought Paul was off his rocker. But he realized that as more people went into the backcountry, some would opt to use motors to extend the trailhead for deep, fast adventure skiing.

As a businessman, Ramer was quick to admit his failings. In the ‘80s he had good cash flow with a military contract to build an antiquated cable binding for the U.S. Army. It was the backing he needed to promote the sport he loved. Before anyone knew it, Ramer had managed to seed several thousand pairs of Ramer Classic bindings around the world. But when the military contract dried up, Alpine Research Inc. was forced to survive on the niche backcountry ski market, where mistakes are difficult to recover from.

With a host of bad PR from the decline of his backcountry business, Paul formed a business partnership with his daughter, Kris, in 1996. Their new company, Zardoz NOTwax, LLC, sells his most recent patent, a revolutionary lubricant for skiing and snowboarding that he dubbed NOTwax™.

In 1993 I interviewed Paul Ramer. His insight hadn’t lost its edge, and as you will see, time only proves his prophetic vision.

Couloir: How did you get into skiing?
Ramer: I never really learned to ski until I was in college (Swarthmore, PA) where we had a good outing club. We used to go up to the Adirondacks and up to Vermont for spring break.

When I came out to Colorado in 1970, I went on a snowshoeing trip. When I got to the top of the hill and looked down, I said, “This is really dumb. Now I gotta walk back down.” And that was the last time I went snowshoeing. We started using our downhill skis for touring. There weren’t any touring bindings available then, but there were a few Silvretta cable bindings floating around.

C: How did you come up with the idea for a touring binding?
R: Well, the main thing I hated about touring equipment was the boots. The binding came along because there weren’t any bindings to work with a boot I developed from Scott™ boot parts. So I started playing around. I made bindings out of lots of different parts until I came up with what is now the Ramer Classic. Now, that’s a pretty good example of an invention. The tuning fork design originally had these big aluminum bars on the side with a spring and a bolt on it so that the bars would spread and depress the spring. But what I discovered very quickly was the bars would flex before the spring. I wasn’t intentionally looking for that effect.

Then the same thing happened with the heel elevators. There were no heel elevators before the Model R. In fact, I used to get in these long arguments with Europeans who would say “What’s the point of having a heel elevator? Skins won’t climb any steeper than 20 degrees.” Of course, the reason was because they didn’t have a heel elevator. A few years later they realized that it was a nice thing to have, and now you can’t buy an AT binding without one.

But that was also an inadvertent development. Originally it was an energy recovery device. It was a big coil spring and you’d walk on the coil spring as you were going uphill. Your weight would compress the spring, and when you went up you would kind of bounce off of it. The only problem was that there was only one speed and that was real, real fast. So it was real efficient and you could go like a bat out of hell uphill, but you wore out real quick too. Then I started putting a plug down inside the spring to see what that would do, and that’s where the heel elevator came from.

When I finally decided to get into it as a business, people were really interested in the binding, not the boot. It was just too bizarre. When the Ramer binding first came out, back in ’74, that was the first alpine touring binding that had full release and a climbing peg. That was the aluminum binding, the old Model-R. At that time the Izer binding had just come out too.

C: Any more comments on your bindings?
R: Well, the whole purpose of developing this kind of equipment is access. It is not to have something new and really not equipment-oriented at all. Equipment is supposed to be invisible. It is purely utilitarian. It sounds silly to talk that way, but then, why are ski bindings not considered utilitarian?

Because ski companies are trying to come up with reasons to convince people to consume more of their product, and the only way they can do that is to make it different somehow—make it sexier, make it more faddish—and that’s the basis of consumption. I’ve just never ascribed to consumption theory.

C: Would you consider yourself an inventor or a skier that tinkers with stuff?
R: I’m primarily an inventor, secondarily a product developer, and finally a business person. Of course, that’s one of the reasons why I keep running into so many problems with the business—‘cause I really have less desire to deal with the business than I do to promote the fun aspects of the sport.

C: When did you go into business for yourself?
R: Well, Alpine Research Inc. began in 1974 and we got serious in 1975.

C: Were you working a second job at the time?
R: Yeah, I was a senior research engineer in Rocky Flats making robots with Dow. They lost their contract, Rockwell came in, and the local engineers got laid off. So I had five months’ severance pay and figured it might be fun to try and run my own business. I’ve been trying ever since.

C: Where do you see adventure skiing headed?
R: Downhill skiers in the U.S. are going to become more and more dissatisfied with the lack of wilderness experience they get at the big ski circuses. They’re gong to start getting hungry for something a little more interesting, but they want to do it on downhill gear. They don’t want to learn a new sport, they want to take what they know and feel comfortable with and expand on it.

C: What will it take for this sport to grow?
R: The sport will require a shift of attitude from being some kind of extreme, yahoo, wild thing for extreme skiers to this is a fun thing to do for anybody. There are always people who are going to do extreme skiing and stuff like that, but the emphasis needs to be more on the satisfaction of just being in the mountains. For me, the most powerful part of it is being free to do whatever you want to do.

C: What do you want to be remembered for?
R: I’m afraid I’m stuck with being remembered for all the gear I’ve put together. Now, if you consider that a person is actually constituted of the conversations that they’re associated with, then I’m going to live a lot longer than I will in reality, whether I like it or not.

Although Paul’s gear legacy is already cast, the shadow of Paul’s spirit is at the root of the current renaissance in adventure skiing. Russell Rainey, inventor the SuperLoop binding, says of Ramer, “The biggest contribution Paul made to backcountry skiing was his promotion of the sport. Second, of course, was all the stuff that he developed.”

At the time this was written, Paul had been diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease, a degenerative disease of the brain. It took him from us in March, 2000. He was only 56.

What about the long term effects? Is one brand really better than another? Has anyone you know stuck with a single brand over time so that we might even be able to tell? And if someone gets skin cancer, was it for lack of using sunscreens regularly, or just during a specific trip, or as this report suggests, maybe it WAS for using the wrong sunscreen.

Do sunscreens accelerate skin cancer?

For reasons that should be evident whenever you lift your head up to drink the free air, the ability to speak your mind is a cornerstone of freedom. If you don’t exercise the rights you have, like muscles, a skill, or a talent, you lose ‘em when you don’t use ‘em. So here’s to celebrating the free exchange of ideas — the reason and rhyme of words — for all things that reflect an earn your turns perspective.