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AT/Randonee bindings
I will be leading a group of students on a mountaineering trip on the
Juneau icefields. We are looking for a cheap source of skis/ski bindings (i.e. Silveretta, Ramer, etc.?) that we can use with our plastic climbing boots. We'll need about 10+ pairs. I already tried Play-it-again sports, but living in Juneau, our options are fairly limited. Does anyone have the abovementioned gear that they'd be willing to part with, or can point us in the direction where we could acquire it at a reasonable cost? Thanks in advance, Jacek |
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In article , Jacek wrote: I will be leading a group of students on a mountaineering trip on the Juneau icefields. We are looking for a cheap source of skis/ski bindings (i.e. Silveretta, Ramer, etc.?) that we can use with our plastic climbing boots. We'll need about 10+ pairs. I already tried Play-it-again sports, but living in Juneau, our options are fairly limited. Does anyone have the abovementioned gear that they'd be willing to part with, or can point us in the direction where we could acquire it at a reasonable cost? _ Skis you can get very cheap depending on exactly how fussy you are, there's little point in spending too much on skis as skiing with mountain boots is really difficult. Buy $50 beater skis at a swap sale and throw away the bindings.[1] As far as I know there is only one binding available in the USA that works well with plastic climbing boots. The Silveretta 500. They never go on sale, but they have dropped to more reasonable prices lately. Roughly $250. _ You can get them at wwww.backcountrystore.com, but shipping to Alaska will probably drive the price up considerably. Your best bet might be to contact a local shop that deals with Climb High and try and get a bulk discount. http://www.climbhigh.com/ _ When the dollar was stronger, you could often get significant savings on stuff by ordering over the internet from Europe. There is also a lot of AT gear that never makes it to the USA that you can get through these shops. You could try these sites http://www.barrabes.com/ http://www.telemark-pyrenees.com/ _ Good Luck. I've done a lot of trolling for gear over the last 10 years and you can always get skis cheap, sometimes boots cheap, but I've never seen AT bindings on sale except when they close out models with known defects. I really think negotiating a bulk deal with a Climb High distributer is probably your best bet. Shop owners are a lot happier to give you a deal if they know that it's not going to sit on the shelf for a year. _ If you're really on a budget, you might consider snow shoes. Not as fun as skis, but skiing in plastic climbing boots isn't that much fun anyway. _ Another alternative would be to rent AT boots and skis. Light AT boots climb pretty well as long as you don't want to do lot's of French technique. _ Booker C. Bense [1]- Shorter is always better. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBQCZkD2TWTAjn5N/lAQGTPQP9HXHflu8W1VrzhIPz9PmWRwGxkQW0uUR7 WVX3UdRl1mlnQmvDXWKvN9PI9+AeKz0vb87FVgaew+zLUYHMMb XsfzWDeveUvH3f XoAn7wubpAD6SUsgz+XPEd2ml6IxW39igH3YwS9ED44jh6RX5C U2mWlTUys/fv13 2GSBwNvRSgU= =IJmz -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
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Thanks for the suggestions.
Yeah, the skis are not a problem - lots of last year's models around, cheap! Basically the issue is finding cheap bindings, which as you note is pretty hard. We don't need any fancy, releasable bindings, just something to ski up to some mountaineering objectives. They will be used with skins on 99% of the time, then 1% on the occasional broad slope descent. I wouldn't put my students in snowshoes for a week on the icefield, not if I want them to enjoy themselves... Unfortunately we don't have a place to rent them from locally. Jacek _ Skis you can get very cheap depending on exactly how fussy you are, there's little point in spending too much on skis as skiing with mountain boots is really difficult. Buy $50 beater skis at a swap sale and throw away the bindings.[1] As far as I know there is only one binding available in the USA that works well with plastic climbing boots. The Silveretta 500. They never go on sale, but they have dropped to more reasonable prices lately. Roughly $250. _ You can get them at wwww.backcountrystore.com, but shipping to Alaska will probably drive the price up considerably. Your best bet might be to contact a local shop that deals with Climb High and try and get a bulk discount. http://www.climbhigh.com/ _ When the dollar was stronger, you could often get significant savings on stuff by ordering over the internet from Europe. There is also a lot of AT gear that never makes it to the USA that you can get through these shops. You could try these sites http://www.barrabes.com/ http://www.telemark-pyrenees.com/ _ Good Luck. I've done a lot of trolling for gear over the last 10 years and you can always get skis cheap, sometimes boots cheap, but I've never seen AT bindings on sale except when they close out models with known defects. I really think negotiating a bulk deal with a Climb High distributer is probably your best bet. Shop owners are a lot happier to give you a deal if they know that it's not going to sit on the shelf for a year. _ If you're really on a budget, you might consider snow shoes. Not as fun as skis, but skiing in plastic climbing boots isn't that much fun anyway. _ Another alternative would be to rent AT boots and skis. Light AT boots climb pretty well as long as you don't want to do lot's of French technique. _ Booker C. Bense [1]- Shorter is always better. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBQCZkD2TWTAjn5N/lAQGTPQP9HXHflu8W1VrzhIPz9PmWRwGxkQW0uUR7 WVX3UdRl1mlnQmvDXWKvN9PI9+AeKz0vb87FVgaew+zLUYHMMb XsfzWDeveUvH3f XoAn7wubpAD6SUsgz+XPEd2ml6IxW39igH3YwS9ED44jh6RX5C U2mWlTUys/fv13 2GSBwNvRSgU= =IJmz -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
I used ramer bindings with satisfactory results skiing in the Alaska
range, and even up to 14k on Denali. There are a few tricks to them, but they are adequate. We are not talking about doing any extreme skiing, just moving from one climbing objective to the next. Jacek Arthur wrote in message If someone offers you Ramer bindings, back away slowly, then run. Run fast, run far. Biggest pieces of unreliable crap ever foisted upon the BC community. I saw many a skier struggle with these awful things, myself included. |
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In article , Jacek wrote: Thanks for the suggestions. Yeah, the skis are not a problem - lots of last year's models around, cheap! Basically the issue is finding cheap bindings, which as you note is pretty hard. We don't need any fancy, releasable bindings, just something to ski up to some mountaineering objectives. They will be used with skins on 99% of the time, then 1% on the occasional broad slope descent. I wouldn't put my students in snowshoes for a week on the icefield, not if I want them to enjoy themselves... Unfortunately we don't have a place to rent them from locally. _ Stubai makes a kind of strap-on plate binding that looks a lot like a Grivel crampon with the points cut off. As I recall it was fairly cheap and looked like it would be okay for trudging around. Here's a picture of it http://www.globetrotter.de/jpg_prod/s/st75001-.jpg _ 80 euros is a decent price, particularly if you can get them without the VAT. _ There's always the Pika Sastrugi Ski Binding binding, but even for students that's kind of cruel and IMHO spending another $100 for the Silveretta is well worth it. _ The Marines have a special winter torture school in which they put people on white heavy skis with Mickey Mouse Artic boots and some kind of weird binding. You can often get the surplus skis cheap, maybe you can find the bindings as well. _ As a very last resort, you might consider taking a old telemark cable binding and retro-fitting them with a spare crampon toe bail[1]. Old Rottefella cable bindings without a cross bar might work best. I've heard of people using them with leather mountain boots with some success. I'm not sure how well they'd work with plastic boots that don't flex at the ball of the foot. _ Booker C. Bense [1]- Drill holes in the sides, you'll probably need a least a couple experiment pairs to get it right. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBQCf3YWTWTAjn5N/lAQGXYwP8C4wHnzz6G2TobLuTt3jJf50UtspQcrHC qY1bYfHHmSnQtfYXMmp8ScgR/Gyo/NWjSXKK8+/sJTcbkIBvDa5HBa6rQuciJ+rI +CWg45mF1ChZ1lyJv1gU7AJ8ENCWyG6b/f/TJxXZSAF0uDiGxaosfS5TfDP7QGuP EDOAEKKoFGQ= =Za1q -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
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Older versions of the Silvretta 500 are usually available on e-bay and
seem to go for around $100. |
Sorry to ask this question in possibly inappropriate newsgroups,
but if I were buying a new pair of downhill skis, for use both in lift-served areas and the backcountry, why would I not want to get an AT binding such as the Silveretta 555? Cost isn't much higher than a regular downhill ski binding, it's lighter weight, and much more flexible due to heel release. Are the current crop of downhill bindings safer? More durable? |
Yep, lots of good deals on used Silvretta 404, and also the 400 --
same as 404 I think, but w/ different boot sole length adjustment, or something like that? Of course, be sure they're in good condition, which can be tricky over eBay. Sometimes you see the old 300 for sale, but I think this had no release mechanism whatsoever, which sounds kind of scary (even for approaches up and snowplows back down). |
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