I recently had the opportunity to visit a unique destination known as the Lost Trail Lodge. The trip was part of the Blizzard/Tecnica Stoke Tour; a backcountry adventure that began at Sugarbowl Ski Resort, toured the Pacific Crest, and landed 16 skiers in lap of luxury at Lost Trail. Over two days, we logged several thousand feet of skiing and skinning, summited Anderson Peak, enjoyed dinner and drinks, and talked a little shop along the way.
Lost Trail is tucked away in the Sierra Nevada mountains and makes an excellent retreat for ski touring enthusiasts looking for more than the average hut trip. The lodge is comprised of a series of cabins connected by hallway to the common area and kitchen. The decor is rustic; animal pelts, vintage skis, pictures from previous visitors, and musical instruments pepper the interior. Each cabin offers accommodations for two to four people, a fireplace, and private baths with jacuzzi tubs, making Lost Trail a place to pamper yourself, after a long day of self powered skiing.
The weather is finally changing and although there is no snow on the ground in my back yard, it is precipitating. Any departure from warm, sunny, blue skies is a welcome one at this point. You can only shoot so many time-lapses to kill time before you go crazy… Over the last few days though, I’ve gotten some decent subjects for the camera so I decided to play around.
I had the chance to take in one of the best Tahoe sunsets I’ve ever seen, the time-lapse I shot did it almost no justice, but the pictures we took certainly did. It shows the front of the storm that we are currently experiencing. At the moment, it appears to be snowing above 8000 feet with light rain at elevations below that.
The other footage I shot this week was of the 2013 Salomon Rocker 108 and Guardian Binding getting a set of Quiver Killer binding inserts. The binding has been highly anticipated and a long time and the making so it was kind of cool to find out that Village Ski Loft would be the first shop in Tahoe to actually mount a set. They would be going on a pair of 2013 Rocker 108′s, a new addition to Salomon’s Rocker 2 family. The ski is modeled after the original Rocker 2, but with a narrower waist dimension (108 mm) and slightly less tip and tail rocker. The set up looks like it would be a versatile backcountry set up and excellent resort powder ski.
Lake Tahoe’s driest December on record is in the books and the 10 day forecast isn’t very promising when it comes to precipitation. Drought winters can be torture for a skier and this winter is no exception in my opinion. Trying to find the bright side of skiing the same mediocre, man-made snow over and over becomes more difficult with every turn. I bet the rest of the world wishes they had the same problems as this skier does…
But over the last week, I’ve undergone an attitude change. I live in Lake Tahoe and even without snow in January, it’s probably better than where a lot of people live. So I decided to embrace the fun things that I can do here; mountain biking, disc golf, and learning to snowboard. Yes, snowboard.
Anyway, please enjoy the sights and sounds of me and a few close friends enjoying the sun and killing time until the snow falls. And please, pray for snow.
Here’s a timelapse of me mounting an innovative ski product called the “Quiver Killer”. In short, it is a threaded and backed insert that can be put into virtually any type of ski and allows you to run multiple binding configurations on the same ski. I find it most useful for swapping between Salomon alpine bindings and Dynafit touring bindings. The inserts allow for easy exchange of bindings using only a screwdriver. This is useful for travel, swapping between touring and alpine bindings, or using one binding between multiple pairs of skis. I have the set up on two sets of skis and am very happy with how they have held up numerous exchanges of bindings, as well as the versatility they provide.
The installation is pretty straightforward. You drill the skis as you normally would, only using a bit of the appropriate size for one of the inserts. Next, thread the holes to accept the inserts. Before driving the inserts in, fill the holes with a small amount of epoxy to make a strong, waterproof bond. Lastly, thread the inserts into the ski using the insertion tool and t-handle. I like to cure the skis upside-down in the hot-box for a few hours, so that the epoxy drips out a little, guaranteeing a waterproof seal. (Thanks to Matthew G. of Jersey for that last tip).
A bit of advice on aligning the holes: Before drilling anything, I like to lay out a “map” of where the potential holes will be drilled using the appropriate jigs and a punch. It’s nice to leave a little extra space, since the Quiver Killers will take up quite a bit more room than your average binding hole.
Intuition Liners - The best thing to happen to ski boots since plastic and buckles.
Intuition custom ski boot liners may be the most important ski boot innovation since plastic and buckles. You may think that is a wild claim, but if you think about it, what has really changed in ski boots in the last 50 years? Not much… Designs have come and gone, and only two that have stood the test of time; Two-piece and three-piece boots and both of them are still made of plastic and utilize metal buckles. Although traditional liner designs and materials have improved in recent years, they are essentially the same idea in execution.
Intuition liners are by no means a new product, the company has been making liners for 20 years. But until the last decade they were hard to find, harder to find someone that can make them right, and did not offer the durability and fit to appeal to expert skiers. Like any product, they have evolved and become better over time. Now they are available as OEM equipment from several companies and dozens of models in ski and snowboard boots.
In over a decade of fitting ski boots I have not found another product that combines the fit, warmth, comfort, and weight that Intuition Liners offer. I am lucky to work for a shop that embraced these liners early and have made over a thousand pairs of them. In that time, I can only recall a handful of unsatisfied customers. They changed the way that I (and everyone else that I work with) look at ski boots; What was once a dreaded piece of footwear can now be the most warmest, most comfortable pair of boots you own.
One other impressive thing to note, is that Intuition didn’t start advertising en masse until recent years, so their gospel was spread by word of mouth. Think of how important that is for a minute. This piece of ski equipment was so good, that friends felt the need to sing their praises to their uncomfortable ski buddies. Then their friends told their friends and so on and so forth.
The product is now widely available and embraced by skiers of all shapes, sizes, and ability levels. The success rate is almost always the same; professional skiers and joey’s can almost always benefit from an Intuition Liner. So if you have problems with the fit, comfort, warmth, or weight of your ski boots, get Intuition Liners and experience the world’s most comfortable ski boots that rip. You will not regret it.
