New Skis!

Well, I finally made the switch from Tele skis to AT skis. For those not familiar with the difference, Tele skis (typically) use rigid plastic boots but the heel is never attached. This allows you to cruise along on the flats and climb up hills with skins. Here is Molly's Tele setup.

AT (aka Alpine Touring) also use rigid plastic boots but the heel can be fastened or released with the flip of a lever. The idea is that you release your heel for skinning up the hill and then lock it down for the downhill parts. Here are my new (used) AT binding and my super sexy new (also used) boots. Here the heel is locked down

Here the heel is freed by flipping that black lever up

I tried a season of Tele and never really felt confident on them. In fact, I never had any fun on 'em. I was always fearing crashing of plowing into trees. This morning Molly and I took the new skis and AT binding out for a test run, though we had a hard time finding enough snow. Ski Road was melted out so we headed to Hidden Valley. The snow there was pretty patchy but we managed to find a small hill to take a couple runs on. Right away, I was sold. Skinning up was easier because the binding actually pivots during the stride instead of just bending the boot. And skiing with your heels actually attached is so much easier! Sorry to all you hardcore Tele guys but I am too lazy and uncoordinated. Oh, another huge benefit is that AT bindings will actually release in a bad crash, saving your knees from an early retirement.