Look at the people crossing Greenland or Antarctis.
Madshus Glittertind or some pretty narrow Åsnes skis with 3-pins or Riva and leather boots seem to be the standard setup. _________________ /RT
CUT THE CABLE... Rottefella Supertelemark! Fits all NN boots, step in, step out, adjust from neutral to active with a push of your pole!
Typical touring skis should be less than 3000g/pair, with bindings I think. For example Helium with 3-pins, 2800grams = 100oz.
Thats right? 1oz ~ 28grams?
Or do you americans have your own ounce too? _________________ /RT
CUT THE CABLE... Rottefella Supertelemark! Fits all NN boots, step in, step out, adjust from neutral to active with a push of your pole!
Remember to bring two sleeping bags, the smaller one inside the bigger one, and put your boots inside the outer bag, otherwise they will freeze during the night and won't soften up before lunch time.. _________________ /RT
CUT THE CABLE... Rottefella Supertelemark! Fits all NN boots, step in, step out, adjust from neutral to active with a push of your pole!
Joined: 08 Dec 2004 Posts: 2793 Location: Bay Area
Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2012 8:48 pm Post subject:
Yup, 3kg or so for Heliums with a light binding seems to be in the right ballpark, maybe more like 2.8kg for shorter ones than what I'd use. You know, I wasn't trying to get picky about ounces and grams, but thought it was noteworthy that my basic grunge-grade nord BC setup (complete with plastic shells and metal edges) was almost dead-nuts identical weight to my own Dynafit rig that I'd thought was near-rock-bottom weight for its type.
And indeed, one can get much lighter with touring gear (I've got some nice old 210 Landsems that come in under 2kg with bindings) or even XC racing stuff (don't laugh, I saw lots of skating gear at the occasionally steep 40-mile Elk Mountain race in Colorado). It's just that deep in the high country with little or no support, and multi-day, there's a tendency to want a little overkill. Metal edges are going to come in handy on spring Sierra mornings, and as Charley said, with plastic boots you don't need to worry about the constant corn-splash saturating things, which would really suck on a 30+ mile day.
Yeah, that's the thing about plastic boots - you stay dry and warm. Every time I look at something like a Fischer BCX 675 and think it might be nice for striding across the basins, I get that little nagging question - will it be dry on the 4th morning? and the 5th and 6th?
well, for low angle 15+ miles per day ... I will be in leathers and 3 pins .
IMHO Plastic boots, be it excursions or AT boots are for high angle skinning 15 miles or less.
bobskiing wrote:
Sure, OK, race-grade AT is lighter than mass-market Excursions. How much lighter I don't really know; I've bought more than enough outdoor gear to know how trustworthy spec weights are. As I said, most of the AT boots a person would really consider using (F1) for mileage actually weigh about the same or more as the stock Excursion, but, true, one can drop a pound or so by using other gear (basic nordic or race-specialized alpine). So... are you here to tell us that your choice for 250 miles of mostly low-angle would be a set of rigid AT race boots?!?
Joined: 12 Jan 2005 Posts: 1060 Location: Somewhere in the land of Oz
Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2012 11:39 am Post subject:
^ While I'd generally agree with this, boots like the TLT5 have an amazing range of movement compared with most plastic boots (AT or tele) and I'm not sure that one would lose all that much speed on the flat - if any. Still, if there were significant amounts of flattish terrain, plus little or no steep and icy stuff then Salomon XA would be my choice, despite being no lighter than reasonably lightweight tech gear; the serious AT race stuff is way lighter again. _________________ Nashti zhas vorta po drom o bango
Joined: 06 Dec 2004 Posts: 7138 Location: Breckenridge CO
Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2012 12:42 pm Post subject:
satanas wrote:
^ While I'd generally agree with this, boots like the TLT5 have an amazing range of movement compared with most plastic boots (AT or tele) and I'm not sure that one would lose all that much speed on the flat - if any. Still, if there were significant amounts of flattish terrain, plus little or no steep and icy stuff then Salomon XA would be my choice, despite being no lighter than reasonably lightweight tech gear; the serious AT race stuff is way lighter again.
The serious rando race stuff is seriously expensive too. _________________ Creeds and doctrines are like a raft to get you to the other shore and then to relinquish. Neither cling to the raft or reject it when drowning. Even better, become a strong swimmer.
Look at the people crossing Greenland or Antarctis. Madshus Glittertind or some pretty narrow Åsnes skis with 3-pins or Riva and leather boots seem to be the standard setup.
Recall from reading into this stuff around Tom Horn's circum-Arctic trek they did use 3-pins, but think they were special polar boots from Alfa with fabric outer...ballistic nylon? Current approaches from one operation--northwinds-arctic.com--show their choices:
Quote:
Boots & Bindings
Many ski boot & binding systems have been tried, many have failed, none are fail proof. Here are some of your best options that have been tested on Polar Expeditions.
Option #1 We recommend the custom made Afta (Alfa?) Expedition boot with a Meindl inner boot liner (this is a climbing boot liner)...The Meindl liner (or any climbing boot liner that has a water-proof inner layer) adds ankle support and acts as a vapor barrier so that it is not necessary to dry out your boot liners every night. Use this boot with a Voile 3 pin w/ cable binding. The weakness in this system is that the binding pin holes in the toe of your boot can pull out. The solution is to add the cable to the binding. To add warmth, NorthWinds makes a custom made insulated over gator that insures warm feet. See Expedition Support for more information.
Option #2 Another system is a soft boot system that uses a Sorel, Baffin Boot, or Acton boot (these are rubber soled with nylon upper and knee high removable liners) with a Hummock binding that straps onto your boot and use a step-in Solomon binding. Check out: www.hummocks.net . You may need to make straps longer for large size boots.
Option #3 A back-country boot such as: Alpina, Rossignol…that works with a NNN BC binding. This is a lighter weight system good for the Greenland Ice Cap and the South Pole where temperatures are not as extreme as the North Pole. You will need to add an insulated over-boot...Note on over-boots: they will need to be glued and screwed on. I've had the best luck with Shoe Goo. Use a washer under the screws to keep them from pulling out.
satanas wrote:
...Still, if there were significant amounts of flattish terrain, plus little or no steep and icy stuff then Salomon XA would be my choice, despite being no lighter than reasonably lightweight tech gear; the serious AT race stuff is way lighter again.
(Based solely on map study & reading accounts, I say...) Thing about the JMT is though there are the long gradual stretches mentioned, I don't believe they are very skatable. They are long traverses where you are mostly on edge. Probably about 8 of the passes, however short, are steep. No problem if you hit them when the snow's soft, but.... Don't know what the system boots are like with crampons (possible?) on hard steep.
In addition to the advantage of cramponing the steep crust, the other advantage I see in Excursions over a lighter NNNBC type is greater foot & ankle relaxation on a long traverse if it's crusty. I think that kind of low-grade support and ease adds up over time to calories and comfort way more than worth the weight.
satanas wrote:
boots like the TLT5 have an amazing range of movement compared with most plastic boots (AT or tele) and I'm not sure that one would lose all that much speed on the flat - if any.
That's the sort of background hum I've been hearing, and why my glimpse of the"future I see." Glad to hear you're sticking with the tele, Bob, because I think that sort of AT is out for me. If it were me--wait...it is--absent a magic-wand AT setup, I'd stay Excursion-level, but now believe, based on these accounts, any hope of success for an attempt would require that I: live a year at 7,500' altitude & grow more blood cells, get in great shape, lose 10 lbs, and lose 20 years of age. Concluding all are mandatory, I think I'm innoculated against failure.
Joined: 08 Dec 2004 Posts: 2793 Location: Bay Area
Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 12:36 am Post subject:
Whiteout wrote:
Thing about the JMT is though there are the long gradual stretches mentioned, I don't believe they are very skatable. They are long traverses where you are mostly on edge. Probably about 8 of the passes, however short, are steep. No problem if you hit them when the snow's soft, but.... Don't know what the system boots are like with crampons (possible?) on hard steep.
Crampons fit system boots just fine (the ones that use straps anyway). Certainly well enough for Sierra Passes. It's duckbill that many crampons have trouble with.
NNN-BC and Salo-BC are not that great for holding a hard edge. You can do nice turns on favorable snow, but on an icy traverse, particularly with more than 60mm underfoot, you're going to be straining some to angulate enough slop out of the binding interface to make it work. I think 3-pin BC boots edge a bit better, even at similar weight.
Which isn't to say that it wouldn't be worth the trade-off, depending, if trying to do the route fast. I did Elk Mtn Traverse and the partial-WS100 thing using Salo-BC and non-metal-edged, and aside from relatively short sections (on each) where sort-of-icy open sections made it difficult, they were the right stuff, light and lively, more so than Excursions would have been.
And I well recall once skiing out Echo Col and seeing Captain Nordic's SNS bootprints on the 40 degree slope. For pushing the envelope distance-wise, optimizing for 5-10% of the tour isn't the name of the game. But would I personally take Salo or NNNBC bindings on a length-of-Sierra trek? Probably not.
I just remembered that the guys who circumnavigated Tahoe non-stop in 61 hours a few years back ( http://telemarktalk.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=33427 ) did it in Excursions after trying it in leathers and having serious boot structure and blister issues. Maybe they're not so bad for covering ground after all.
We always end up discussing gear
That's OK with me, lots of interesting info above.
Fischer makes some really nice narrow skis with steel edges.
I have some BCX something, later called E89(?) with NNN.
They work great on windblown hard snow and ice as long as I don't go downhill too fast. _________________ /RT
CUT THE CABLE... Rottefella Supertelemark! Fits all NN boots, step in, step out, adjust from neutral to active with a push of your pole!
I thought that this thread was going to be about those people who are currently roller-skiing across the United States. http://www.skiacrossamerica.com/
Also from the world of skinny-skis and lycra, I have several friends who've gone to to Finland for the The Rajalta Rajalle Hiihto, or "From Border to Border". It's an organized ski tour where participants ski from town-to-town, sleeping in school gymnasiums and places like that along the way, and the tour organizers take care of meals and transporting luggage. I guess it's seven days and about 450-kilometer (270-mile).
I'd love to do the Rajalta Rajalle Hiihto someday. But you couldn't pay me enough to roller-ski across the USA, that sounds horrible.
Joined: 12 Jan 2005 Posts: 1060 Location: Somewhere in the land of Oz
Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 11:31 am Post subject:
bobskiing wrote:
NNN-BC and Salo-BC are not that great for holding a hard edge. [snip] I think 3-pin BC boots edge a bit better, even at similar weight.
IME Salomon XA boots aren't comfortable on anything really firm, especially if you're traversing. With XA7 boots plus Atomic Rainiers (60mm waist) I found it was impossible to prevent the boot sole twisting and the ski base sitting flat on the snow on a firm traverse, although to be fair the XA8s are somewhat better. Still, ideal resort boots they are not. I'm not so sure that leather plus pins does much better either although I guess they might if you're using trad (narrow) skis with a waist around 55mm and a tip around 70mm like say Glittertinds. If we're talking plastic boots plus pins that's another story.
My experience is that if any significant chance exists of ice (or similar) being encountered, especially on long, steep traverses, then your feet, knees and psyche will be happier wth plastic boots - of any kind. If using very narrow XC skis with ~60mm tips, then a BC system might well be okay, otherwise not so much, unless you have stronger ankles than mine. Note that "possible" and "comfortable" are not the same things here. _________________ Nashti zhas vorta po drom o bango
Joined: 21 Mar 2012 Posts: 2 Location: Sierra Nevada; eastside
Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2012 3:30 am Post subject:
Whiteout wrote:
paulzo wrote:
To add to your JMT trips, my fiend John Dittli skied it in 1985 with a friend, S to N, all the way to the valley floor.
I'd love to add his mid-80s trip to my chronology. Got any details on it, Paul? Date range/gear set-up/#days? (Better yet, link to a TR?)
.
Hi
Rob Russel and I skied a JMT/highline in 1982. NoBo, we took 28 days from April 15th, leaving lots of time for peak skiing. In the 70's and early '80's there were a party or two skiing the JMT each season.
We broke one binding, one pole. Rob was bummed with the skinny skins on firm uphill traverses. Our route stayed high in most places where the JMT drops into canyons. We had 3 resupplies.
I include a brief synopsis of this trip in my show Skiing the Range of Light; a 35 year retrospective If there is anything else you would like to know about this or other early trips in the Sierra or North Cascades, please let me know.
John
Walk the Sky: Following the John Muir Trail
www.johndittli.com[/url] _________________ Author-Walk the Sky: Following the John Muir Trail
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