“The devil will find things for idle hands (I think feet as well as any other body part could be substituted) to do”.
And so with one of the most snowless winters on record and very dangerous avalanche conditions in the backcountry it’s been very hard to stay entertained on skis. I’m not necessarily proud of it, but I’ve been lightening my gear and running uphill in tights. Training a little with some of the fastest guys around has been a quick education in pain and gain. Thanks to Jason and Andy Dorais and Jared Inyoue for dragging me around. Check out their blogs for some great adventures! This winter they put together a great little recreational race series at Brighton ski area. They just wrapped up the last race of the season, but they’ll be back next year. Visit Wasatch Citizen SkiMo Series site to check it out. Enjoy this video Jared put together.
Quite incredible how fast you can go uphill with a set-up that comes in under 10lbs. That’s the weight of my megawatt’s alone! The Alien boots from Scarpa are ridiculously light and yet they’ll turn a pair of pixy sticks.
So what is the allure? It’s about shedding as much weight as you can and pushing yourself to the melting point. Of course I’d rather be skiing powder, but when winter gives you lemons it’s time to wear fruit boots. It’s been funny to top out at Millicent lift and have Snowboarders unload and just stare with jaws dropped and then pass them on the way down.
If you find yourself available next weekend sign up for the classic Wasatch Powder Keg and help celebrate 10 years. There are categories for everybody on every type of gear.
yep hard Winter to endure, sometimes in the effort to keep insantiy at bay, you’ll stumble onto something actually quite good. I have a somewhat similiar set up, Scarpa F1 carbon rando race boot, a TTS binding using the lighter Trab race toe, and Voile Vector BC skis. IT was amazing how such a lighweight boot ( I switched from the stock liners to BD’s BOA liners) could drive these skis so well! It also was so much lighter going up, that I was willing to tackle new terrain options that I wouldn’t have, because they would have entailed long low angle slogs before the steeps started.