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Good all round ski-ing/touring set up

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Since loads of people seem to be looking for something similar I thought I would do a quick review of my setup and some of the issues I’ve found.

First off, this is completely personal to me, so before posting along the lines of “this is sh*t, that’s sh*t, you're sh*t” this all my opinion on based on what fits my style and feet!

What was I after?
I ski around 3-4 weeks per year and this is a combination of ski-ing with friends, family and sometimes with guides. In an ideal world I would live in the alps and would be doing loads more ski touring, but the reality is I don’t, and I can't simply go on holiday and dick off and leave friends or family whilst off with a guide.

Therefore I was after a good all-round setup that would work well on piste, off piste, in the snowpark and also doing some touring.

I thought long and hard about the whole dynafit vs fritschi debate so though I'd add my 2 pence in.

My setup is K2 Coomback, Fritschi Freeride Plus, Colltex skins, Salomon Quest 12 boots.

K2 Coomback
First off the ski, I just simply love it, Skied on these for about 7 weeks over the last 2 years and find it amazing. When I first got it I was slightly worried about its width as my old pair of skis were 78 at the waist, these are 102 but from the moment I got on them I was amazed at how lively they felt on piste. I mean they are obviously not going to be winning any slalom events but I never felt I was struggling to make all but the sharpest of short turns. Off piste floated great in powder, the rocker really helps just sail around and in slush you get a really nice “surfy” feel.

My only complaint is due to the width it can be a little harder fitting in narrow skinning tracks and also on really packed out icy traverses. In Val d Isere traversing for ages on a rock hard 2 step traverse to get over Col Pers felt like agony at the end.

But when into a fresh powder field they are simply fantastic.

Fritschi Freeride Plus
There's obviously quite a long running, “do I get Fritschi/Marker vs dynafit” thing going on. In my view the Fritschi are great, they are so easy to use and also bearing in mind the fact that in reality there will be a lot of faffing when ski-ing with friends family and kids (frequent drink and loo stops) the convenience of the bindings really helps. Also, when out with guides and others on dynafit there seemed to be a hell of a lot of faff with people struggling to get into their dynafits.
That said, they are way lighter, and if touring became the majority of my ski-ing then I would probably switch over to them. Whilst touring in Chamonix I was definitely tempted to switch after feeling like I'd run a marathon after skinning up Col du Tour Noir.
However they felt absolutely solid on all descents, I never once felt they were sloppy or unresponsive, they were great in bumps and powder. They also felt rock solid when messing about in the snowpark. Its not like I was hitting any huge air but the doing boxes and medium jumps was no problem at all.
Another plus for the Fritschis is the ease of being able to switch between various heights on the heel riser.

Colltex skins
Not a huge amount to say on the skins, they never put a foot wrong, never came loose, pretty much always had great grip, the only time I felt I needed the couteax was in Cham in some really slick ice. I can highly recommend these skins.

Salomon Quest 12 boots

Now I'm fully aware of the bad press these got but the way I see it that was on the touring/dynafit soles and there's been a witch hunt ever since. Anyway, even with the bad press I decided on these boots as they were the best fit for my feet. I was considering the Black Diamond Factor and Garmont Endorphin and my last choice was the Salomon's. I went in thinking I was going to come out with the Factors but after spending a lot of time considering the fit of the above, the Factors just didn't work for my feet, the Quest boots were pretty much perfect.
I've now had 4 weeks on these and am still really happy with them. I'm pretty heavy (95kg) so wanted a stiffer boot and these really feel like they have the stiffness to drive the skis wherever I want them to go. When first using them for skinning I did get a couple of blisters on the heel, but after making some slight mods to the heel and also opting to keep the second buckle engaged but loose this problem has gone away.
These are obviously not built for full on touring but in general I think they are fine. My only gripe is that there isn't a huge amount of flex forwards. Mostly going uphill you don't notice it, but when on a flatter section where you really want to make some big strides you feel it being a bit restrictive.
These boots are also fantastic on piste, in fact I reckon I'd recommend them to friends who only ski on the piste, In my view they have plenty of power for piste ski-ing but you have the added advantage of being able to flick it into walk mode when walking to/from the lifts.
This really helps, late season in Chamonix there was a long walk out from the Argentierre glacier back to lognan and these felt fine.

So all in all I reckon this is a really good set up for anyone who wants to do a bit of touring but still want the convenience of for normal piste ski-ing.

If I was to do it all again I would seriously consider going dynafit if touring was going to be more than 50% of my ski time. At the moment the compromise is definitely on the uphill, but I'd say if you were only skinning 1 to 2 hours at a time to find some good snow, this works well. Anything more than that then dynafit would really win out. Not sure how well dynafit would do in the snow park though!

I reckon if I could afford it my ideal setup would be the K2 Sidestash with alpine bindings for powder days and K2 Backlash with dynafits for a more touring oriented option. But for all round use I'm very happy with the Coombacks and Fritschis.
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Good summation there.

With regards the Quests I get the impression they are very similar to the Atomic Tracker 130 (without the whole Dynafit controversy issue though) - same parent company so I guess similarities are unsurprising. I'm thinking the Trackers might be a good option for me, my feet don't tend to get on with Salomons.

I love the Freeride binding so completely agree there, I have them mounted on some Line Prophets (which I already had) which are amazingly light so great for touring. I have G3 skins which have performed well so far. The ski/binding set up is great on piste too when I'm not on more aggressive Alpine kit so I'm more than happy so far snowHead
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