If you already tour, or are thinking about it, choosing ski touring kit can be a minefield. How do you know your kit will compliment each other? Will the boots overpower the skis, leaving you exhausted from struggling down those otherwise heavenly slopes. Is the ski too much for those light bindings to handle?
Ski touring is superb fun. It allows you to access hidden powder stashes, exercise in the mountains, reach untouched slopes, get away from the madding crowd, have an adventure, and journey across a snow covered landscape. It can be hard work, it can be tiring, it can be awesome fun; this all depends on the kit you’re using.
Be ready to compromise
Touring kit is about compromise, balancing lightness for the ascent with support, power and stability for the down. Matching your kit; namely skis, bindings and boots, is critical. There’s a massive amount of touring kit available though, so where do you start?
Advice from the best
SkiKitInfo was fortunate enough to work with leading IFMGA Mountain Guide, ski instructor and Head of Skiing at Glenmore Lodge, Andy Townsend, to put together this video guide about choosing tour ski touring kit.
Andy’s an industry-leading voice on ski touring kit. His guidance will help you decide on the type of touring boots, skis and bindings.
Andy covers everything from stiff freeride style ski boots which allow you to tour, right through to super-light ski mountaineering, or ski-mo, racing kit. There’s also advice at the end of the video that will help you if you just want to get out there and give it a go, before taking the plunge and buying your own kit, or even if you’re not looking to buy gear.
We’ve also put together a handy 101 about ski touring skins, to cover all bases (excuse the pun).
We covered a whole lot in that video. While we’ve kept the video brief, here are time stamps in case you want to just jump ahead.
00:15 – Ski touring kit selection; critical elements to get right
00:33 – Ski touring kit selection mistakes to avoid
01:08 – What to think about first & freeride touring / freetour boots
01:24 – Should I use really light ski touring boots?
02:13 – Touring ski selection considerations
02:56 – Which ski touring bindings should I choose?
03:44 – What’s the most important point to remember when choosing ski touring gear?
04:03 – Can I try ski touring kit before I buy it?
04:54 – What do I need to take with me if I ski tour with a guide?
If you’d like to find out more about some of the superb touring kit out there, check out the SkiKitInfo.com YouTube channel. We test and review all manner of ski kit, to help you make informed choices so you can maximise your enjoyment in the mountains.
We’ve also covered a lot of touring kit on this site, so there’s loads of touring related content for you to enjoy.
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All of the info, reviews and testing by SkiKitInfo.com is independent and unbiased, to give you a full and honest appraisal of the products. Brands don’t pay us to review their kit or have any say in how the review turns out. We’re all passionate ski experts and want to provide you with the best information available.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
In case you like words, more than video, here’s the transcript.
How to choose your touring kit
I’m up. You ready?
The weight and width of the skis and boot combination is the critical element that you’ve got to get right, and you’ve got match that to the person you are; the body mass, weight, and skier ability or ambitions.
Kit choice mistakes?
So, we see a lot of clients who are concerned about their fitness level so they will buy a really lightweight setup which is great for going uphill but then they’ll be exhausted trying to ski that lightweight setup back downhill, and then you’ll conversely see the skiers who think ‘oh, that’s too light’ and buy something really big, heavy and stiff and struggle to ski that in the variable snow that you encounter as and when you’re on your ski tours.
So finding the right balance is critical.
What to think about first?
You always need to start with the boot.
If you’re a skier, you’re going to want a stiff boot, if you’re a mountaineer who’s moving into skiing you need a freeride boot because you need the support of a ski boot not a touring boot.
Really light touring boots?
So if you’re looking to buy a lightweight touring boot then you’re going to be putting the mileage in, you’re looking to do a thousand plus metres of ascent in a day so you’re a ski mountaineer your principle aim is to back a summit or a journey and you’re going to accept that the performance for the descent is less but the advantages of of going uphill with a lighter boot, or when you put your crampons on and have to climb or mountaineer the walking mechanism is more akin to that of a mountaineering boot but you have to accept the lack of performance.
They ski well, but you need to tone down your skiing to suit the boot and the ski combination, not try to make downhill race turns on a super-lightweight ski-mo boot.
Ski considerations?
If you’re a good skier then you want to have a playful ski that will cope with powder, ice, breakable crust, slush, mush, anything you’re going to come across and generally something around 100 millimetres underfoot, give or take a bit either side is where we’d look to advise clients but not to go too short.
People with a piste skiing background generally go quite short and when you add the weight of a rucksack it’s likely they’ll go over the handlebars when they hit the resistance of that powder or wet snow so something between your eyes and maybe 5 to 10cm above your head is about the right length.
Binding selection?
A good binding doesn’t necessarily have to be a lightweight racing ski mountaineering binding, it’s one that you can get in and out.
If you’re looking for a ski for piste and off-piste and touring then a frame binding is the best choice.
If you’re looking for a touring binding and you’re a good strong skier with a lot of experience a pin binding, a low tech binding, is probably what you’ll be looking for.
And there are a lot of good models that are hybrids between the two like the Salomon Shift or the new Marker Duke PT binding.
They’re really good options to give people the single quiver ski they can use on a family ski holiday they can go touring with their mates they can go hut-to-hut with that ski.
What’s the most important point to remember?
The weight and width of the skis and boot combination is the critical element that you’ve got to get right, and you’ve got to match that to the person you are your body mass, weight, fitness level and skier ability or ambitions.
THE NEXT BIT OF ADVICE WAS RECORDED JUST BEFORE COVID. IT’S STILL SOUND, SO WE’VE KEPT IT IN. FINGERS CROSSED IT WILL BE POSSIBLE SOON.
The kit sounds expensive, can I try it first?
Ski touring kit is an investment you know, the boots, the skis, the bindings, these are top end technology and they’re expensive so if you’re new to touring go on a touring course and go to some of the hot-spot locations like Chamonix, like Val d’Isere, like St Anton and other areas like that where the shops have a lot of rental ski touring equipment.
You can try different boots from different manufacturers different widths and sizes of skis and they have different binding combinations for you to play with.
And have a week with a guide, learning the basics getting to understand things and use the guide’s input on your selection of your kit.
What to take with me?
When you book a guided tour the conversations before you even set off on your ski trip are really, really important and get that advice from the guide because they’re the ones that are going to have to help you overcome any poor choices on equipment.
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