It’s three times the OR show in impact, without dogs dragging leashes around your knees and just enough small children to be amusing. It’s Euro, it’s colors, it is so big you use escalators and people movers to get around. Luckily the complex is a decommissioned international airport. A few impressions from my three days at The ISPO.
When you walk into the repurposed airport, you know you’re in for sensory overload. Bigger than life, and also weirder than life, it’s like the brands are multiplying way past any Malthusian prediction to eventually populate the planet, pushing humans aside, filling the world with nylon and ptex.
I usually do my ISPO focus on hard goods, mostly ski gear. But every year my mix is different. My take on this 2016 show was driven by the realization that in the ski touring segment this is a time of incremental improvements in existing products. Even the new stuff is incremental, for example Arcteryx Voltair airbag pack being an electric unit following BD Jetforce. I honestly could not find anything supremely disruptive as has happened in the past with gear such as Dynafit Beast, Marker Kingpin and Fritschi Vipec. Not to mention what was perhaps the most disruptive ski touring product in recent history: Dynafit TLT5 boot introduced in 2010. Below are my impressions. I probably missed a few things as I’m only good for a few hours of mouth breathing gear blogging. But I tried.
I try to enjoy it but I’m really more cut out for being in the mountains, like when I took this photo of Louie in Austria about 48 hours before.
First things first. Plumbing and balloon of Mammut airbag backpack are totally reworked. I met with the designer Michael Vollmer, responsible for the project. The bag, plumbing and carbon cartridge (based on the Snow Pulse removable airbag system R.A.S. Mammut purchased a few years ago) only weigh 1 kilo and take a tiny bit of room at the top of the pack. Bag is a lighter “silicon” coated fabric in a new neon color that’s said to be incredibly bright on snow. I had to see this to believe it, an amazing job of miniaturization, considering the CE standard has been updated to require a stronger fabric in the balloon. Full review coming from Mike Arnold.
WARNING, CONTINUE READING ON A GOOD INTERNET CONNECTION, LOTS OF PHOTOS. Click photos to enlarge.
Mammut packs with guts exposed. The system is easily swapped between bags, you can end up with a 4 pound airbag backpack that’ll work for most ski tours. The 20 liter model rucksack only weighs 1.5 kilos, 3.3 pounds. (weights with carbon cylinder, alu cylinder adds about 350 grams.) We are in trouble for not sending our samples back. I’ve mentioned before that changes in the airbag rucksack space are coming rapid-fire. It is nearly impossible to shop without hesitating, wondering what’s coming next year!
Carbon nitrogen cartridge. You can only get it in Europe, but 20 percent of our readers are in Europe so we’d better publish a photo! The aluminum cylinder weighs 700 grams with the carbon slightly less than half that weight, thus saving around 12 ounces! That is significant and makes it quite annoying that the carbon version is not available at retail in U.S., and essentially has to be smuggled into the country. Ship a few dozen to Mexico then across the border at El Paso?
Carbon cylinder compared to alu, Mammut. Less space and half the weight, but the alu is refillable.
This was weird. Just across the village square from Mammut was AVA BAG, using the same carbon cylinder and plumbing that looked nearly identical. Don’t ask me, what’s at ISPO stays at ISPO?
Headed over to SCARPA, Freedom is just so beautiful, how do Italians do it?
New SCARPA F1, this version without Tronic automatic cuff lock. Don’t yawn, F1 is an excellent boot that’s formed along the low-volume low-mass form factor, only with a more ‘SCARPA” like fit. It’s available with Tronic automatic lock as well, we’re undecided on that. Worth a demo for sure.
Tronic problem is solved by making the metal tab thicker so it’s less likely to fit into the wrong place. One does not want to be fitting into the wrong place! Seriously, this looks much better than the original problematic version, but it’s obvious you’ll still need a correctly adjusted binding heel unit.
SCARPA craftsmanship is undeniable. You can change forward lean by flipping the lean-lock catch.
Check out these Grivel crampons with a specially shaped bracket for the Tronic. Crampon fit is an issue with any boot having much bulk in the walk-ski latching area, F1 is no exception.
Of course you’ve got your SCARPA Alien carbon, with nice serviceable cuff rivets. What should we predict for carbon boots, 90% market penetration within four years? They’ll have to figure out how to do boot fitting on composite scaffo for that to happen. Perhaps thicker dual-density liners are the key, that’ll mold but still feel firm in a wider last.
I did pass by the Snow Leopard numerous times, where my Lumix seemed to jump of of my pocket and take photos of the colors without any human intervention.
Can you see Mountopia in this guy’s eyes? he’s a legit badass.
No secret Pomoca is owned by Oberalp along with Dynafit. Frankly, the only thing that interested me about Pomoca is if they’d fixed their slipping tail clips. Skin are only as good as their hardware. The problem is said to be cured and carpet testing verified it to probably be so. The tail strap is stretchy and seems to lock nicely.
Speaking of climbing fur (skins), check out this G3 low-bulk mohair guy, Mohair LT! That’s more like it, nylon skins as thick and heavy as Jeep tires are so 1987.
The camera lept out and snapped these G3 ski crampons, so sweet.
Next stop Petzel, where they’ve got a super lightweight non-dynamic “aramid” fiber glacier rope and rescue kit. Here at WildSnow we’ve gotten a lot of criticism for using our 5 mm Dyneema cord for glacier travel. You need to be careful with this and know what you’re doing, but it’s real, as Petzel thinks as well. I still think anyone tied to non-dynamic rope should have some sort of shock device on their harness, like those used on via ferrata rigs, watch for that.
Petzel was offering this thong crampon as well, would it look good as lingerie on your partner?
Remember the Dynafit TLT-7 shark nose ski touring boot? Without a crampon ‘ledge?’ Dynafit will supply an adapter but how about a full crampon that’s ready to use the toe fittings for attachment and doesn’t need a ledge? Kreuzspitze crampon could fit the bill.
Hearing that Lange would make a tech compatible boot was like hearing Caterpillar would begin making hybrid 2-seater Euro cars. The boot is more like a lorry on the A-12, I’m sure it skis downhill well. I’d probably get a hundred meters trying to tour uphill in it.
Lange has swap soles. Didn’t I predict those would go away like the boys of summer?
This uber-tech binding check machine has a method of doing heel release tech bindings, I don’t even want to know how much it costs, though I’m trying to scam one for my garage. They offered one to us as show swag, but it’s too big for my Lufthansa luggage.
Fischer Travers boot, as predicted some time ago the market has moved away from beef boots and companies are following. You’ll still get your biggie boots if you want, but the innovation and excitement is in getting the most out of the least. Travers is elegant, simple. Lash yourself in with one buckle and a Boa, walk-ski is the classic external flip lever that’s known to, simply, work. Carbon version (to right) has a carbon cuff, weighs slightly less and is probably stiffer. Scaffo is Grilamid, the plastic we love to warp. Non carbon version weighs 1,050 grams in size 26.5, carbon ver is 980 grams. Notice the ski to the left? Carbon skimo race stick “Verticalp,” about half a kilo, has a set of weights attached so you can tune the mass if race officials decide to enforce the weight rules. Is the 1/2 kilo ski the new target?
Travers walk-ski lock, elegant.
Now we bow to Volkl, and they added some white topskin. That’ll be interesting for icing experiments that Stian and I can discuss while adequately buzzed at the next trade show.
Volkl touring skis, you can’t go wrong here.
Marker Kingpin, only change is a wider tab on the heel lifters, easier to flip with ski pole basket.
ISPO awards are mostly BS, but the Arcteryx Voltair airbag rucksack deserves kudos.
Louie gets the full Voltair run by Arcteryx head industrial designer Gord. The shows this year featured mostly incremental gear changes, Arcteryx is an exception with their debut of Voltair as well as Procline ski touring-mountaineering boot.
Arcteryx footwear maven Federico Sbrissa gets us up to speed on the Procline. During early winter I attended the media launch of Procline and Voltair, exciting. Defining feature of Procline is the unlatched cuff having some “roll” action when unlatched, so you can do things like ice climbing and kitchen work without the rigidity of a ski boot cuff (we assume Federico wanted a boot he could wear while cooking dinner). The rolling cuff is also said to help with ski skin climbing, to that end it’s actually tuned so it’s slightly stiffer on the inside, for help with edging.
How light can skis get? This proof of concept by Moonlight is a 166 cm plank, 70 mm waist, 616 grams, 750 grams with a little tiny binding. What did I say about the 1/2 kilo ski being the new target? Some kind of special foam core is said to be the secret.
Now we head for Plum. They still have the best ski brake, divorced from the binding, manually operated storage and deployment.
Plum gets into the ski game. Are boots next?
I crawled in on my knees and backed out while protrating myself to the great one, later apologizing to the Great One.
Lunchtime at Marker Volkl. You heard of logo shirts, and logo gear, how about a logo pretzel?
La Sportiva has incrementally improved all their products, their full carbon Quadrant boot now has the upper internal liner cuff attached to the shell cuff, eliminating grams and making things work better together. Better performance includes how easily you can get your credit card out of your wallet.
Last thing, beef boots tend to be a yawner, but man the 2016-2017 Dalbello Lupo should get a prize. I can’t wait to ski these things on a big plank. Can one run change your life, like one night can change your life? I’ve got some guest bloggers researching these overarching philosophical questions.
Lupo tongue attachment is easy to work.
No ISPO visit is complete without a visit to the jewelry store of ski bindings, ATK.
ATK owner and artist Giovanni Indulti shows of the goods. It’s actually quite stunning how much ATK has grown, now with a thick catalog including everything from the 88 gram RCA World Cup ski binding to the 420 gram Rental, along with a bunch of accessories such as titanium springs and screws for those of you who spend the summer shaving grams of your bicycle and want something to do in winter while you’re not skiing.
World Cup ATK, catalog weight 88 grams. This seems to be the weight standard in race bindings, as at least one other competitor offers a similar binding. In any case, catalog weight 88 grams, scale weight lower !? I don’t think even Fritz Barthel ever imagined his binding could get that light.
Random, claimed at the ‘world’s lightest sleeping bag.’
This is ISPO on a clipboard. I think you know what I mean.
The walk is finished. My feet hurt. Meet you next year, eating pretzels at Marker-Volkl.
WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou (Louis Dawson) has a 50+ years career in climbing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski down all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest mountain.
