Touring skiing with "snowblades"
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| Žiga2216. 10. 2011 21:49:03 |
I'm slowly planning to venture into the waters of touring skiing and wonder if anyone has experience with touring skiing using so-called "snowblades" as opposed to classic touring skis.
What it is: http://www.curtissportconnection.com/images/Snow_Blades/SNOWJAM/99_rel_610_2011_m.jpg
Why choose them:
- much lighter and more mobile than regular long touring skis
- greater maneuverability
Does anyone do touring skiing and use such skis? Any specific advice (type of ski)? Can they be attached to winter boots with special bindings (similar to automatic crampons)? For snow walking, do you need snowshoes then, or are slightly shorter skins sufficient?
Thanks for the help and best regards!
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| lynx16. 10. 2011 23:48:40 |
This one will often sink in (both ways), since it doesn't look much bigger than bigfoot-k. With those you usually ski late spring and summer, when you have to carry gear high up to the snow. Works also with gojzars with skins, but your foot dances quite a bit. And possible gullies harder to cross and you fall faster into some tree-root hole. I don't miss agility with my 165 skis, and I regularly find myself in dense forest.
btw http://trgovina.hribi.net/artikel/smuči_grimper_ski_set/5 
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| turbo17. 10. 2011 11:39:55 |
I have Salomons, 90 cm, with same - similar bindings as on auto-crampons. And they perform excellently in spring, when lower is all dry, some steeper gully or some steeper snow-covered slope higher still snowy. So more for "extending" the season than for anything more serious.
A couple examples of late spring tours:
dry all to a bit above bivouac II., Rokavski glacier with that best snow, super (Srednji and Visoki Rokav also dry)
Dovški Križ dry, Jugova grapa filled, super
Jalovec dry, likewise access to glacier, but glacier poetry of spring snow
All mentioned with "those short ones" and in gojzars. And quite a few similar, a bit easier.....
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| DarjaZaplotnik17. 10. 2011 12:47:00 |
@turbo
Hm, you must be damn good skier to ski down Jugovo in boots and short skis.
Anyway @Žiga22 ski length is also related to skill. With these shorter ones you can ski many things, as entry into turn and execution of the turn itself is not problematic. But I'd say that skiing technique worsens significantly when you switch to normal length. These short ones force you into knees back position (weight back on butt), with normal long skis that's not possible. Knees have to push forward and inward.
But as @lynx already wrote, problem with "bigfeet" also in deep snow, on hard base very unstable, longer glide naturally (too little glide), stability in mixed terrain. Useless for ascents, unless you get Sigurofix somewhere (I think that's the name). Looks like a clip-in for automatics and has heel lift function.
So they are really more useful for extending the season. I sometimes take them just so after winter climbing I don't have to descend on foot. But I'm still "old school" alpinism and climb in plastic Scarpa , with which it's really no problem to ski.
Otherwise I think it's almost more optimal to look for shorter (height -15/20cm) and lighter skis + light automatics. Quite a lot of used ones are sold.
Hope I helped a bit.
best regards d
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| turbo17. 10. 2011 13:43:13 |
@DarjaZaplotnik
Thanks  skier for sure  good  damn maybe in some other context 
Yes, Rokavski and Jalovčev and Jugovo were kind of my "peak" on snow. With shorties, albeit short, on feet. With classics, that's 160 to 170 or some cm longer/shorter, I wouldn't even try those three things. And the snow was so nice
Boots were "those black plastic" from Scarpa, for clarification.
And what Darja wrote is so true:
many descents are the icing on the cake with these short ones instead of on foot, after nice tours.
And one more on Darja's writing, regarding technique: when many who saw me in spring with these short ones asked how skiing is with them, I replied: mostly ski fast, sometimes on butt Yes, with these short ones it's really something else than with longer ones. Pleasures with both are immeasurable
If you insist on shorter:
Hagan has (had?) one model 130cm length. My buddy has them, with classic touring automatic, skis in boots (leather, winter, LaSportiva) And he's satisfied, skis well, only when we others with normal long still without brakes, he already slips a lot. And then, with brakes, he gets rid of that nuisance too.
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