Use
During ascent, the skis are fitted with self-adhesive plush climbing skins to prevent them from slipping backwards. The ski binding heels are released to allow a Nordic style of striding. The skins are very effective in preventing the skis slipping backwards, much more so than grip wax, and quite a steep hill can be ascended directly without resorting to side stepping or herringboning. The heels of the bindings are often fitted with adjustable steps to maintain the soles of the boots horizontal on a steep climb. Prior to descent, the skins are removed, the heel steps removed or lowered, and the binding heel piece is locked down. Descent is then by conventional alpine skiing technique.
Compared to Nordic boots and bindings, the alpine touring binding is less suitable for undulating terrain, but is more versatile on steeper and more difficult snow. Like telemark skiing gear, this equipment is popular with people from an alpine skiing background; but unlike telemarking, it requires no learning of a new type of downhill turn. Because the fixed heel provides additional support and lessens the force on the toe hinge in downhill mode, modern AT gear and telemark gear are comparable in weight, with both sacrificing control on the descent to reduce weight.
Read more about this topic: Alpine Touring Binding
Famous quotes containing the word use:
“... it is use, and use alone, which leads one of us, tolerably trained to recognize any criterion of grace or any sense of the fitness of things, to tolerate ... the styles of dress to which we are more or less conforming every day of our lives. Fifty years hence they will seem to us as uncultivated as the nose-rings of the Hottentot seem today.”
—Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844–1911)