Anyone really psyched about their Hok style skishoes?

[fatskinning]

@bauerb
I'm curious, what have you done to the base for grip?

[bauerb]

I use old racing skins. they are short and narrow. if I am going into the mountains in deep pow, I use bigger skis. racing skins work great or tromping around in the woods

[randoskier]

PS were you an NPS or NFS ranger?

I was a Minnesota State Park Ranger for 13 years, a USFS Backcountry Ranger for 3 years, and a county park ranger for 10. I was kind of like the main character on "The Rookie." I finally got a ranger job when I was in my mid-30s.

That's great! Nice career working outdoors. My wife worked NPS trail-crew for Yellowstone and then Rocky Mountain National Park, she was also a rescue-climber (VIP) for the NPS on Denali based at the seasonal high-altitude camp at 14,200 for the entire 1994 climbing season. Then she became an RN.

I have to take exception with this statement on your blog- "Our public lands in the United States are a unique and incredibly special heritage. No other country in the world has lands that are owned by us, the public, and allows access to those lands like our country does."

Every Alpine country does, and in Norway, Sweden, and Finland you can go anywhere except cultivated fields and special zones like military areas, and pitch your tent there as long as it is at least 150 meters from a residence. That includes hiking, skiing, and camping on private property. The right to roam is enshrined in their constitutions. They also have vast national parks and communal forests throughout Europe just like the USA does. France alone has over 60,000 km of marked hiking trails. I walked the GR5 from Lac Lehman (Lake Geneva) to the Mediterranean, in beauty the GR5 is comparable to the Annapurna basecamp trek. The Norwegian trekking association (DNT) has over 500 trekking cabins you can open with a single key if you are a member. I have lived in the Green Mountains, in the Rockies, and in the Cascades and I far prefer the Alps (particularly France, though our local Dolomites are quite fine here in Italy) and Scandinavia.

I am not sure where you got the idea that no other country in the world has public lands and public access to them, they have them and they have better access to them! Americans are often saying they have more rights than anyone else, that is not true either- anyone who lives in an EU country has far more rights than an American does, including the right to cradle to grave, high-quality healthcare, and the right to privacy.

[Trailpatrol]

I am not sure where you got the idea that no other country in the world has public lands and public access to them, they have them and they have better access to them! Americans are often saying they have more rights than anyone else, that is not true either- anyone who lives in an EU country has far more rights than an American does, including the right to cradle to grave, high-quality healthcare, and the right to privacy.

Our outdoor heritage is guided by the public lands legacy established by law over a century ago by visionary leaders. These foresighted individuals, President Theodore Roosevelt, Forester Gifford Pinchot, Naturalist John Muir and others understood the importance of taking action both for the sake of the resource and for the benefit of the generations that follow ours. That spirit of stewardship, along with the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation and the Public Trust Doctrine, make the United States and Canada unique. The enshrined rights to pursue opportunities for sport, recreation, and even commerce (such as timber production) on public lands and waters is a core aspect of the American conservation mission and a main driver of our vision to make certain all Americans are able to seek enjoy access to our shared public lands. We differ from the European model in that, every citizen owns a share of public lands and waters in the United States. It is up to us to defend this heritage and ensure that our legacy of stewardship is handed down to future generations intact.
President Ulysses S. Grant established the first National Park in the world, Yellowstone, in 1872, and established a model for the world to follow. Similarly, the New York State Legisslature passed a law in 1885 for the preservation of forests which designated all state lands within certain counties in the Adirondack and Catskill Mountains as Forest Preserve to be "forever kept as wild forest lands"
Our Public Lands are more than historical. They are a unique conservation heritage established in law.