I ran across this on the web today.

http://www.weberarctic.com/arctic-gear/ski-bindings

They look like they might be the best universal ski binding design yet available. They are fairly spendy although not bad compared to, say, Dynafit gear. They are designed to mount on the 3-hole pattern used by Alatai skis, so they should just screw right onto a pair. Or one could swap them back and forth on a pair of cross-country skis with 3-pin bindings.

Excellent for straight-line touring.
Now try doing turns with them on a hill ... :-)
(No, I haven't tried them, but I have done a bit of touring.)

Cheers

Very interesting. Thanks for posting. I did find myself thinking, "A guy who has skiied to the North Pole three times could probably look good with a pair of running shoes attached to 2"x4"s with a few wood screws", but still it was thought provoking.

If you don't have to bring speciality boots, bringing skiis (or snowshoes) only on an early-season PCT starts to look more appealing. A high-cut lightweight trail shoe would be up out of the snow most of the time.

Something we'd do in the ski shop 30 years ago was to mount adult bindings on kid's skis to do tricks on and go down really steep stuff with a lot of control. I wonder how that would work on X-C gear? What's the shortest, metal-edged ski you could have for Sierra snowfields? Maybe kid's 90 or 100 cm downhill skis with skins? You could climb up anything and come down anything. Except for not knowing what below you on a ungroomed snow field!

We are acually looking at this binding for our arctic 2013 trip. We wear custom mukluks most of the time and have a hard time finding a proper binding. We are also trying to find a hybrid ski. kind of like the marquette backcountry ski, but with more and deeper scales. We will be pulling heavy sleds off trail.

Dave

DavidG: It reminds me a bit of the bindings on my Tubbs snowshoes which are cheaper AND include showshoes! But don't the door hinge component.

In the 1970's, REI carried a X-C ski (maybe by Trak?) that was short and wide and meant to function in between snowshoes and X-C skiis.

Where in the Arctic? (I'm in Kenai, Alaska. I get to the Arctic Ocean every few years but NOT under my own power.)

Dave T,

It is still in the planning stages, but I think they are looking at James bay area straight up through Canada.

This is the group I have been hiking with: http://therucksack.tripod.com/MiBSAR/MiBSAR.htm

They are not ultra light and you must carry certain required gear, but some of us try to lighten it up a bit. They are definitely a fun group. At our last trip the participants ages ranged from 23-65 - and we all got along.

I like these bindings - they seem a bit pricy and are screaming out for someone to MYOG them .

Maybe you could dig us up some from Alaska, I'll come pick them up - after some required hiking of course.

Dave

I've got a fair amount of experience with universal binding, and those look very good. They are very similar to a pair that my brother built. Basically, the pair he built tour almost as well as NNN BC, but with a bit of a slap. They turn much better than NNN BC, but not as well as heavy Telemark gear (he goes into more detail). The big drawback is the weight. It sure looks like the Weber bindings are similar in every respect.

Edited by rossbleakney on 01/10/2012 23:48:32 MST.