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| Today’s snow invoking (hah) project is mounting the B&D crampon system with an older Dynafit TLT backcountry skiing binding. This is a good example of how B&D crampons work without a factory binding connection. Instead, you use the fitting shown in the photo above, which screws to the ski and holds the crampon pivot axle. In this case, we added the crampon catch for fixed mode (crampon doesn’t move up/down with foot), and we installed a spacer so the crampon can also be used dynamically (moves up/down with foot). |
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| In dynamic mode, the spacer (AKA pressure post) indicated in photo above allows the boot to push the crampon down for more engagement with the snow. As shown it’s configured for the medium heel lift position, and will also work with boot in high position albeit with less crampon penetration. One problem I noticed is that the Vibram sole boot lugs catch on the spacer, this can be remedied to some extent by skiving rubber off the boot lugs and rounding the corners of the spacer, but a spacer with more surface area might work better. B&D will assist with modifications and custom applications, so getting a different size spacer from them should be trivial. |
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| For me, the crux of configuring this setup was making sure I could use the heel-flat-on-ski binding mode that helps so much with long flat tours (without crampons). As shown in the photo, the crampon fittings barely fit — I had to grind about 1/16 inch of rubber off a few sole lugs to clear the front fitting. The important thing to note here is that without the spacer (pressure post) for dynamic mode, you could use the crampons in the lower heel position, but with the spacer installed they only work for the medium and high heel lift heights. That’s okay by me, as it’s rare to need ski crampons in flat terrain, and one could always switch to the medium heel lift if they found crampons to be indispensable, perhaps while maneuvering in a crevasse field or something like that. |
Conclusion after two days of messing around with B&D crampons: If anything, these guys are versatile. You can figure out a way to get them working with just about any binding/boot combo. More, B&D is there to help if your application requires custom sizes or mods. I’m looking forward to using the B&D crampons as soon as the snow falls. Tomorrow, right?
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.
