Monday, July 16, 2007

Randonnée

I had with me the following alpine touring (AT) gear:

- Dynafit SR 8.0 160cm (with Dynafit TLT Speed bindings)
- Scarpa F1 Thermo plastic boots
- Black Diamond carbon fibre poles
- Kohla 2.1 skins

I chose the gear with ascent in mind. The set is pretty much as light as it gets and worked like a charm on the way up even with a heavy rucksack on. However, in descent there were many problems. Combination of deep snow and heavy load should not even be considered. With a day pack and gentle slope the descent is all right but I ended up walking down when I had my rucksack on.

I had planned on skiing down from the summit but I missed that chance as the conditions were not favorable to take the skis all the way up. I'd imagine that after a light snow fall in slightly sub-zero temperature the gear would be ideal for the final approach to the summit and skiing down. I will probably buy another pair of skis for AT trips where snow conditions will be variable and where weight is not an issue.

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