Reviews – Gear & Other

But there are other benefits to quickly drying out your gear. For one, moisture is a perfect way to encourage bacteria, mold, and fungus growth. That leads to stinky gear at best, and aggravated skin at worst.

The Salomon Shift binding, as you can see above, takes those toepins and disregards them completely when in ski mode. The pins fold in, traditional alpine toe wings spread out, and you’re left looking at a touring binding that looks a whole lot like an alpine binding.

Anyone who knows me as a skier knows I’ve had very few good things to say about women’s skis in the past. Typically, I have found that women’s dedicated ski models are too soft, not torsionally rigid enough, and inhibit rather than help my skiing. But, I’m not the only one who has felt that way and the ski manufacturers are listening. Finally, I can honestly say I have found some women’s skis that I don’t want to just throw in the trash. In fact, I actually love them. These three skis will allow women to charge hard.

Frank and I agree on a lot of things. But, baselayers is one of the areas where we differ. That’s why we haven’t sought a sponsorship with a baselayer company in years past. Due to Frank’s eczema, he prefers synthetic baselayers. I, on the otherhand, have not been able to find a synthetic baselayer that performs as well as wool for me in the backcountry – too often synthetic layers don’t dry fast enough, leaving me chilled to the bone on a winter day. But then we tried Corbeaux Clothing, and my views of synthetic baselayers have been forever changed.

The Petzl Leopard LLF crampon clocks in at 330 grams, whereas my steel ‘pons are a whopping 900 grams. Not only does the lighter weight make for a lighter pack and lighter feet when they’re on, but it also makes the trailhead game of “Should I take ____?” a whole lot easier.

The idea behind the G3 Scala skin is that most of the grip is centered under the foot, while the tip and tail section of the skins don’t do much for grip, and mostly reduce glide. G3’s solution was to add a urethane fishscale section at the tip to increase glide, while (hopefully) keeping the traction characteristics of a full nylon skin.

The ski sensation that you feel in your feet is one of extreme feedback- these are not damp skis in any sense of the word. But they are amazingly powerful. I was loading this ski up and catching air as I came out of carves- something I never do in this type of ski. That said, would I want to harness that kind of energy on a steep slope?