Reviews
Reviews of the lastest gear
Sunday, 17 July, 2005
Laurent Chappis, the Anarchitect
Decorated war hero, creator of Courchevel, UN expert on mountain development, iconoclast. The name Laurent Chappis is perhaps not widely known outside of France and the world of architecture but he practically wrote the rule book on how to design a ski resort. Philippe Revil’s biography traces Chappis career from ski touring around Grenoble in the 1930s to five years in a German PoW camp to the development of Courchevel, an open air laboratory of ideas and finally as the Anarchitect, rebelling against the monster he had helped to create.
• (1) Comments • Read More... •
Monday, 20 June, 2005
Scarpa Beefs Up Ski Boots
The Italian ski and alpine boot maker Scarpa is beefing up its range of ski touring boots for the 2005-2006 ski season. Two new boots are on offer. The Tornado aimed squarely at the expanding backcountry freeride market and the Spirit 3 which slots in somewhere between the Matrix and Laser range.
• (0) Comments • Read More... •
Friday, 06 May, 2005
Retrospective on the 2004/2005 Ski Season
Short but intense are perhaps the best two adjectives to describe the winter in the Northern Alps, home to the largest area of lift served skiing in Europe. The start of the season promised much with the first snows in Tignes above 2000 meters falling on the 27th of August. Summer snow is not that unusual but on the 17th of October there was more serious snow fall right down to 1200 meters with some 30 cm at 2000 meters that enabled some ski tourers to take advantage of the conditions to get in an early summit, skis on from the car.
Ski Mountaineering at 1500 meters in January
• (0) Comments • Read More... •
Thursday, 14 April, 2005
Black Diamond Skins - First 10,000 meters
Ski touring has undoubtedly benefited from the trickle down effect from downhill skiing. These days you would be hard-pressed to find touring skis that are not shaped. New, larger designs make skiing in difficult conditions much easier and have undoubtedly contributed to the boom in backcountry skiing. However there is a price to pay when climbing. To climb slopes ski tourers fix “skins” to the bottom of their skis. Made from either Mohair, Mohair/Nylon mix or Nylon these skins have glue on one side that sticks to the base of the ski and fine bristles on the other that grip the surface of the snow. Skins enable skiers to climb slopes up to 30 degrees, steeper pitches can be tackled in a series of traverses.
Black Diamond G3 Climbing Skins
• (0) Comments • Read More... •
Wednesday, 06 April, 2005
Dynafit Aero TF
With the success of the Garmont Megaride and Adrenalin every ski boot maker wants to have a “freeride” type boot in their stable these days. Dynafit’s Aero TF is the Austrian manufacturer’s initial response to this market and a departure from its core ski touring market. Eagerly awaited last year it has now been on the ground for the best part of a season so we decided to take a closer look.
• (0) Comments • Read More... •
Saturday, 19 February, 2005
Less is More for Dynafit TLT TI
Loosing around 100 grams doesn’t sound too hard does it? But what if you only weigh 330 grams to start with? A tall order but that is exactly what Dynafit have achieved with their new TLT Race TI binding. Not surprisingly they have just picked up the coveted European Ski Award at the 2005 IPSO show in Munich.
• (0) Comments • Read More... •
Sunday, 13 February, 2005
Naxo Nx21
Naxo is launching an updated binding for next season, the Nx21 aimed at “freeskiers”. The original Nx01 had an inovative pivot mechanism that made uphill skinning and conversion “kick turns” easier than the forward pivotted Fritschi bindings. It also closely resembled an alpine ski binding and was aimed at cross-over backcountry skiers. However it suffered a number of teething problems in its first year.
The all new Naxo Nx21
• (3) Comments • Read More... •
Monday, 07 February, 2005
ARVA A.D.vanced
With multi-antenna becoming the de-facto standard in avalanche beacons French manufacturer Impex has introduced its latest model, the A.D.vanced. Adding a second antenna has the advantage of giving the searcher direction information. In theory this lets him home in on avalanche victims faster.
ARVA A.D.vanced
• (2) Comments • Read More... •
Thursday, 16 December, 2004
In the Footsteps of an Angel
It used to be said that everyone could say what they were doing when they heard that President Kennedy had been shot. The explosion of the Space Shuttle, Colombia is a more current reference. For me, it is the disappearance of the snowboarder Marco Siffredi.
• (3) Comments • Read More... •
Wednesday, 01 December, 2004
Diamir Axion Ski Crampons
It is a dilemma that every ski mountaineer faces. You are climbing a slope, gentle at first with good snow. Little by little it steepens, you begin making conversion turns as the gradient gets too hard to handle straight up. Then suddenly your outside ski slides away. It is too steep for your climbing skins to grip and the extra width of the skins makes it hard to get your edges to bite into the slope. You realise that once again, you didn’t fit your ski crampons soon enough.
• (1) Comments • Read More... •
Members
Log-inRegister
About PisteHors
Advertise
F.A.Q.
Updates
Comments
Trip Reports
Ski Search
Hiking
Last 12 Issues
Atom
MyYahooNews Categories
Recent Forum Posts
Pyrenees ski resorts get early start - 18/11/2008 10:31 pmChamrousse Snow Report - 18/11/2008 01:51 pm
Film: West Peak of the Combeynot - 17/11/2008 04:50 pm
Damages awarded to skier left paralysed by off piste accident - 17/11/2008 07:25 pm
November snow near Morzine - 18/11/2008 05:14 pm
Stats
Total Entries: 844Total Comments: 977
Total Members: 2678