Today, you can buy alpine touring bindings (and boots and skis) in a dizzying array of types. There are ultra-light setups for those who focus on going up, hybrid designs that work well going both up and down and designs, like the Marker Duke, that are perhaps not quite as nice for touring as a lighter binding but exceed every telemark binding on the market when it comes to the most important part of skiing: the actual skiing part. And, if Heather is really arguing that making as many different types of turns as possible is better and more “free”, then why isn’t she making fakie pow turns? Or buttering off of windlips or smearing Alaskan spines or tapping into all the other types of turns that fat twins with rocker and alpine bindings allow? It’s because she can’t.
Now this isn’t to say that certain members of our species haven’t adapted to using subpar equipment to ski. Nick Devore and Shaun Raskin have proven that you don’t have to use the best equipment available to ski well. But neither of them have won the Hanenkamm yet, nor have they skied all of Colorado’s 14ers or chalked up a descent on Everest or won a Winter X Games Gold medal. Nope, the guys and gals who are doing those things are using bindings that hold their skis firmly onto their feet.
Of course, you don’t have to choose to have better equipment. But remember that while you’re sketching across windslab to get to that powder filled chute on your floppy tele setup, I also have the freedom to click into my AT bindings, crank some high speed GS turns past you and poach your line. Ain’t freedom great?
Tom Winter is a freelance writer. tomwintermedia.com.
