…and saw a demo of it as well. All I’m allowed to say is that it looks viable and quite nice, and the proto was red. I’m at the ISPO trade show in Munich, Germany. Arcteryx is next to the Black Diamond booth. Both booths this year are more of your closed variety rather than the big open floor plan of last year perhaps because they’re both on the cutting and competing edge of air-fan avalanche airbag development? Quite funny, while at the BD booth you could hear the Arcteryx airbag firing all day long, and same in reverse. Battle of the fans! Feel that breeze!
Your friendly blogger gets the story from Scarpa. New Freedom RS is state-of-art though it does have the swap sole I predicted would be gone from the industry by now. Yes, those are weird Italian beanbag chairs. Really.
I was premature in my predictions last year that the Black Diamond airbag would be heavily disruptive to the status quo of gas cylinder airbags. But it’s definitely had an effect, as I see quite a bit more emphasis on making the tank systems more user friendly, lighter, and easier to travel with. But I still say beware to the compressed gas companies. When they get the price and weight of the electric packs down to competitive levels that’s what any logically thinking backcountry skier is going to want. Arcteryx looks to be making that happen, albeit too slowly.
In any case, on to the rest of my ISPO hiking, in words and pictures.
The yellows blacks and reds, and blues, and… make La Sportiva one of the more colorful stops. I love their clothing fit and function, but some of the colors for next year are probably a bit much for me.
Most of you have seen this kind of stuff before, but it’s always amusing, especially when it is now the FREERIDE EXPERIENCE!
I had a nice meeting with Marker Volkl. More on that later. For now note that they run a full-service beer counter and coffee bar (in background to left), so that’s become my main hangout when my feet can’t stand any more hiking.
Those ever elusive Dynafit Beasts are in their full glory.
Another photo from my morning at the Dynafit Center of Excellence. Engineer gave me a tutorial about how too much boot rocker interferes with heel-flat-on-ski and is why most bindings have a bit of ramp angle even in flat mode. Those are their Beast TUV certificates hanging on the whiteboard: expensive pieces of paper.
Always fun to stop by Pieps and look at their history display. This is the first one. They date it as 1973; our opinion is the first effective retail beacon was the Skadi began sales in 1971. But there is some debate about that.
Stopped by BCA, and word is the BCA Link radio has become a hit, and they’ll now have a European version with the EU public chat frequencies. I was told that in Japan it might be illegal to use a 2-way radio. Anyone know about that? BCA airbags have an overall re-design in look (Euro style!), but plumbing remains the same.
Best ski vise I’ve ever seen. Eggbar.
Hagan now has a boot line made by Roxa in Italy. It’s a basic boot that I’m assuming will be competitively priced. Uses Dynafit certified tech inserts (note the red clip-seal on the toe); overall the real deal and worth looking at.
Fischer new graphics.
The famous or infamous Dynafit re-branded bindings are alive and well.
ABS and North Face introduce a strap-on avalanche airbag system. Good idea but looked heavy and bulky.
I found some boot fitting stuff, but nothing exciting.
Black Diamond is making good on their promise of a ‘simpler, touring oriented ski wall.’ How and why they ever thought they could compete with Atomic and Fischer as an alpine ski company is a mystery that will probably never have an answer, at least until Peter Metcalf writes a memoir. Now, with 15 nice ski models including the popular (and WildSnow Ultimate Quiver pick) Carbon Convert, they’re a ski touring and ski mountaineering ski company again. Hurray! The skis are made by Blizzard and they’re closing their China facility. (Though BD had ski boots on display, rumor is still that they’ll not be making ski boots, but I’m thinking they might continue with a simplified ski boot line as well since it’s important for a company to have a complete line of product in any one category.) Interestingly, they had a quite nice fixed-length carbon ski pole that’ll be retailing next year — one of my futuristic predictions.
The real Black Diamond touring skis do not mess around. Did I say they are real?
This was the tool that every core skier needs in his workshop. Behold the Ptex extruder that 100 percent re-bases your skis! I was fascinated. Watched it for an hour.
French company Millet makes some of the nicest stuff out there if you like sleek Euro-styled packs and clothing. The scene in their booth is sleek as well, as one can imagine. But I was surprised they were serving pretzel bread sandwiches instead of baguette. Could it be that the internatonal millenials have even taken over Millet?
This is where the fun really began. I got together with Fritz Barthel and cruised ISPO with the myth, the legend, the man with the wry smile himself! Thats Hoji to the left, Fritz in the middle, and Dynafit TLT 5-6 boot instigator Federico Sbrissa, who in my estimation completely set the ski touring boot industry on its ear when Dynafit first introduced the TLT-5. “Fede” works for Arcteryx footwear now, and he’s doing good things there as well.
Here is the nefarious crew at Marker, attempting to destroy a Kingpin (no luck, good binding!) Me to left (on contract from the “world’s only” touring blog), then Stian Hagen (on Marker contract as wurstel and beer server), Hoji (on Dynafit contract for industrial espionage), Fritz Barthel (on contract to produce wry smile when required), Federico (on contract to complain about non-Italian food as well as producing honest Italian boot designer commentary on demand.)
Fritz and I headed over to ATK where the metal work is so fine it is displayed in a jewel case. You get the feeling that at any moment a bunch of Mini driving guys in black ski masks will be smashing the glass and making off with the goods, chased by an Italian guy pitching prosecco bottles with deadly accuracy.
In all seriousness, check out this uber-trick rescue sled that snaps into ATK bindings. Bravo, bello.
ATK rig in the making.
Fritz is honored everywhere he goes at the show. He’s incredibly well respected for his inventing what’s become the ski touring binding standard of the world. ATK owner gave him this framed photo of himself and Fritz. Thing is, most of these binding makers essentially got their start by outright copying Fritz’s designs, so they’d better be nice.
Ski Trab keeps coming up with excellent ideas. This tech binding toe has a simple spring that is integrated into the touring lock. Fritz was impressed, so I was as well.
Fede showing Fritz his new Arcteryx ‘Technical Performance Footwear’ line. It’s GTX, only with a removable liner that can be used as a slipper and of course a long list of uber-tech features that make you think this shoe even includes an anti-gravity generator, or at least a miniaturized Go Pro in the toes. This is the same booth where I received the holy unction to witness inflation of the Arcteryx airbag pack.
I’ve said this is the year of the climbing skins. Truly, I’m seeing much more innovation in the “fur sector” than ever. Colltex has various glue versions as well as a super nice glue-renew film that you simply stick on your ski. No fuss, no ironing, no cleaning of old glue. You can even peel it back off and put on a new layer, over and over again.
Colltex glue renew in action. This will be awesome for ski shops.
Plum brake and the drop-in crampon. The brake is beautiful. Let’s hope it works.
Plum wall of jewelry. They finally have a working ski brake, or so it appears. Perhaps of more interest, they’ve innovated a ski crampon that is amazingly easy to install and remove, in the category of ‘why did I not think of that?’ It drops in like most other ski crampons, only with a slightly different keyhole lock that doesn’t require sliding it to the side. I got the impression that Plum is responding to a much more competitive environment in the tech binding arena. In my view next winter is going to begin the shakeout. In theory a bunch of new bindings will have the bugs worked out, and you’ll see fierce competition in both freeride and touring binding retail. What is more, we may see an enhanced shakeup if things like TUV certification and safety issues are subject to more scrutiny. As Fritz Barthel says with a wry smile “this should be interesting.”
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.
