It was a year ago when, after asking your advice in this forum thread, I took the plunge and purchased the strange, culturally unfamiliar, alpine touring gear. I wrote about exactly what I acquired on March 2nd and promised that I’d report back how it all worked. This, then is my preliminary report.
Why has it taken so long to report? I picked up the skis with the bindings mounted, and the trimmed skins, on March 24. That is a significant date because that very evening my grown-up daughters held a family meeting and announced that we were now all in the grip of a SARS-CoV-2 lockdown. They were determined that their 70-something parents would survive the pandemic. The next medical announcement was that my backcountry buddy needed a hip replacement and we were not going into the wilderness together in the 2020–2021 season. What this has meant is that I’ve not been able to try the gear until this spring when I’d be on my own. So, I’ve been using the local ski hill after it closed for the season. There is still snow up there — I was skiing yesterday; and while it looks dismal from the parking lot, all I had to do was walk about a 1/2 mile and 300 vertical feet to reach continuous snow and begin skinning up.
To be frank, spring corn is very forgiving snow. Also, I have lost a lot of fitness, and I don’t how much I will ever be able to recover. Okay, enough whining. I think the gear is doing everything I hoped it would. I’ve watched lots of how-to skiing videos and I have to keep reminding myself to stay over my skis and not get ‘in the backseat.’ And that inside ski, since it is not weighted, sometimes has a mind of its own. I’m alone out there, so I’m not skiing very fast, and I am trying to be cautious.
Those short 164 cm skis turn easily. I think I'm really going to like that. I’ve discovered that I can make a series of very short turns, and keep moving down the slope within a 6–8 foot swath — something I never could do with my longer tele-turns. In spite of the short length, they seem stable.
The G3 Ion bindings and the La Sportiva Skorpius boots are a wonder of design and technology, but I'm a bit concerned about their robustness. Well, back in ’03 I broke the top of my G3 Targa binding (and had to walk off the hill), but the fix was fairly easy and not expensive.
http://ballantyne.com/Railroad_Pass/Ski_Grouty.html
Probably it won’t be until mid-February 2022 before I can test this system with the variety of conditions that we encounter in the real British Columbia backcountry: deep fresh damp west-coast snow, sun crust, icy conditions. I am also wondering if I’ll be up to it. This spring, every time I go out I’m trying and learning something new. I may have only one or two more weeks this season and I’m attempting to educate my muscle memory so I don’t start from scratch next season.