December 2013 archive

Review: La Sportiva’s Spectre

When you first lay eyes on La Sportiva’s Spectre you can’t help but think this is a specialized rando race boot. The svelte marketing photos do nothing to prevent that view. Considering it weighs around 3 pounds per boot (mondo size 26.5) and has a huge cuff ROM for longer strides while walking or skinning …

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Revelation with NTN

  Sometimes you need to make a wrong turn to know what the right way is. Or as National Lampoon pointed out several years ago, two wrong (left) turns don’t make a right, but three do. Such, it seemed, was my experience with the New Telemark Norm (NTN) system. But all is well that ends …

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First Look: Fritschi Diamir’s Vipec 12

  The new Vipec 12 from Fritschi Diamir appears poised to follow through on what G3 threatened to do – upset the landscape of the two-pin tech binding world dominated since inception by its founder, Dynafit. Two things separate this binding from the majority of tech bindings that are proliferating in the market. Elasticity to …

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BCTalk: Making Lemonade

  We always start our season with as much ‘nordic’ as we can get in. Good Thanksgiving storms gave us enough to begin the season right. Sub zero temps kept the snow fantastic until this week. Introduced a couple of friends to skinny ski touring as well which made this start to the season even …

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Tech Tip: Hot scrape to clean ski bases

  Aside from avoiding skiing in thin, early-season snow one of the best ways to care for your skis is by waxing them. Most skiers wax their skis so they glide faster. While many backcountry skiers don’t bother waxing, rationalizing that they’re not concerned with winning any downhill medals, there are additional reasons to wax …

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Review: Thule’s EasyFit Tire Chains

  Last winter I was introduced to Thule’s Easy-Fit Tire Chains. The idea sounds almost too good to be true. Even if the voluptuously enticing YouTube video of a bikini clad lass putting them on makes you wonder if they’re trying to pull one over on you, that same video evidence shows that they are …

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BCTalk: Upvalley from Gothic, CO

  It looks as though new forum member elinck’s position as winter caretaker at some sort of Colorado scientific facility could very well dethrone Alaskan snow pole inspector as everybody’s current dream job. It’s roughly a four-mile ski from the trailhead along the closed/unplowed road into the townsite, so groceries and beer are sort of …

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