Shoestring Bindings: Free the Toe?

[Capercaillie]

It was late spring and there had been a day of wet snow and rain followed by a couple of cold nights, so when going out over Shepherd Pass it was no surprise to find the north side a sheet of ice. No way was I going to even attempt traverses or kick turns on that 35° of smooth ice. I climbed down the rocks, paralleling the gully as far as I could, and was searching through my pack for something sharp and hard to scratch steps, when I looked up to see Parker with his 40 pound pack jump-turning down in perfect control. We all watched fairly aghast, when Paul stopped, looked down at his feet, and calmly announced that the bail on one of his experimental bindings had broken on one side. He pushed off again, this time being careful to keep the one ski on the ice so he didn't jump out of the binding.

From Chouinard's foreword to Paul Parker's Free-Heel Skiing.

[Manney]

[fgd135]

Great fun TG! And on what appears to be touring skis with very little sidecut! And in junk warm spring snow conditions!
You should make a point to try the same idea next winter in softer conditions and see if you have better control.

As an aside, some 3 pin bindings have slots in the vertical part of the wings so that a heel/toe loop can be improvised if the bail breaks. I've never skied with that myself, but I have helped rig up another skier's boot into his binding after his 3-pin boot sole cracked behind the pin line, all the way across and into the insole. He clamped his boot into the binding, even with the floppy sole. I looped cordage over the toebox, thru those slots, and then around behind the heel, a few times for good measure because the only cord available was an old nylon avi cord. But it sufficed.

[TallGrass]

It was late spring and there had been a day of wet snow and rain followed by a couple of cold nights, so when going out over Shepherd Pass it was no surprise to find the north side a sheet of ice. No way was I going to even attempt traverses or kick turns on that 35° of smooth ice. I climbed down the rocks, paralleling the gully as far as I could, and was searching through my pack for something sharp and hard to scratch steps, when I looked up to see Parker with his 40 pound pack jump-turning down in perfect control. We all watched fairly aghast, when Paul stopped, looked down at his feet, and calmly announced that the bail on one of his experimental bindings had broken on one side. He pushed off again, this time being careful to keep the one ski on the ice so he didn't jump out of the binding.

From Chouinard's foreword to Paul Parker's Free-Heel Skiing.

Very

Not sure what kind of bindings or skis he was on, nor how smooth the ice, but I've encountered similar steep-smooth-iced-over on my alpine where all the snow has been scraped off and down to ice (or the hockey-stop smooth's have melted and refroze) where you "make edges bite, with all yer might!"

Reminds me of doing this stuff around 1:26 on (first long day at resort with these, I've gotten a bit better at alpine-ing them). I did a half-day later and remember fighting to get them to edge going down Ramble On (next to Steel City terrain park at Monarch; see middle of trail map), though I'm sure Paul's conditions were much more... dramatic.
From: https://telemarktalk.com/viewtopic.php? ... 733#p58474

Great fun TG! And on what appears to be touring skis with very little sidecut! And in junk warm spring snow conditions!
You should make a point to try the same idea next winter in softer conditions and see if you have better control.

As an aside, some 3 pin bindings have slots in the vertical part of the wings so that a heel/toe loop can be improvised if the bail breaks. I've never skied with that myself, but I have helped rig up another skier's boot into his binding after his 3-pin boot sole cracked behind the pin line, all the way across and into the insole. He clamped his boot into the binding, even with the floppy sole. I looped cordage over the toebox, thru those slots, and then around behind the heel, a few times for good measure because the only cord available was an old nylon avi cord. But it sufficed.

See video above for similar on Karhu Kodiak with partial edge (middle 3rd) and double camber. Fun fact: the same shoelaces were used as "leashes" for the Karhus in the video, girth hitched. I had to unknot the loop for the Rossi' "bindings".

"Touring skis"? Um, edgeless fishscales made for "thin" duckbills (REALLY had to press hard to them to snap and lock down on my Merrils).

All hail the Epoxy Rossi's!!! (that almost rhymes).
(Photo from and more at: https://telemarktalk.com/viewtopic.php? ... 420#p54032 )


I think this is what you describe...

From: https://www.telemarktalk.com/viewtopic.php?t=2052

Some guy send me a pair of those Rottefella Super Tele. And he was using them with Straps, to keep its boots tightly fit in the binding. I didn't know about the functionality of those slots on each side of the binding. Anyone knew? Here is a

And yeah, in hindsight a loop around the heel would have helped, but I don't know if the shoestrings were long enough for that. Any time I lifted my foot more than ... "twelve inches" off the ground, the ski just dangled like some odd windchime much to my and the videographer's amusement and chuckling at the sketch-factor!