Alaskan Rover

Thanks again for your thorough reply...it certainly helps to be able to talk with someone who's had experience with the splits. Your point on the Voille bindings mirrors my own feelings. They look like a decent set-up but not sure if heavy-duty enough for long-term routes and what have you, especially since I am 6'3" and 200 pounds in socks. I will look into the Bomber binding/plates you speak of. I may very end up devising some sort of hybrid that will maybe work for both ice/carving AND have a nordic type skinning adaptation for uphills and approach routes. I've got an idea in mind.....I'll need a big box of miscellaneous parts to put it together...ha ha. Anyway, thanks for your studious input. Gravity IS Life.

Thanks for Answering, Jon. Yeah, I've been on the Voille website and what I am wondering is that the Voille split-board bindings seem to be mostly for powder applications in the downhill mode, and as you know the dynamics of being on an edge/carve are totally different than in the powder. I am sure if those Voille bindings/plates would have the "stomach" for the ice and sublimated hard-crust top crusts that are often found on the Alaskan/yukon peaks. Bindings being the price they are, I would like to be able to switch the bindings form my regular solid board to my split-board and still have them work well for hard-crust all mountain stuff on edge. I realize that is a LOT to ask from one binding...ha ha. :)

I think it's undoubtedly a monentary concern....a lot of areas have 3 different shifts...daylight shift (patrollers, first-aid, lift-op, greeters, ticket sellers, rental, office clerical, maintenance, etc etc); evening shift (pretty much the same except for office clerical); night-time shift (snow-making, janitorial, maintenance, mechanical). If you have night-skiing 'til 10 pm, your snowmaking crew might come in at 10pm and work until 7am with a 1 hour lunch, same with your night maintainence. Your day-shift either comes in at 7 or 8 depending on job, and work until 4:30 or 5pm, Night-skiing areas often have split-shifts for their on-mountain crew or often evening crew is part-time. Anytime a mountain is running that is a LOT of money being paid out and being used up by fuel, etc...AND insurance actuarial tables for determining coverage policies often are dependant upon total hours an area is open to John Q. Public. Bottom line is that the majority of the people don't begin comning to an area (whether it be a day area or a inclusive resort) until 8:30, 9am 9:30. That 9 to 4 pm crowd is their bread and butter...so they're not just going to open early to capture an extra say 7% of early-birds. Even though many (myself included, would LOVE that!). Myself, I am a big fan of Head-Lamp Riding VERY late a night under the moon, AFTER the snowmaking/grooming crew has finished with a particular trail and are gone...then it's Ninja-time for me...ha ha....(not gonna say WHERE, though!!).

Okay...I DO have hardboots....they are just my AT/Randonnee boots...but I have been itching to get them on a board...not necessarily a narrow race board ('cause I have size 13 feet and I like to change my stance angle dependant upon carve/euro at 55/55 or 40/35; all-mountain at 15/5; and a little bit of pipe/park at 15/-15 when I want to [hardboots CAN ride the pipe...I've seen them lots]...so I need a fairly wide board to do all that with my canoe-feet)...but a decent all-mountain board. My hardboots are Scarpa Denali XT (the blue ones...a little stiffer)...I realize they are not dedicated hardboots, but they are what I have and they need to be multi-purpose. The board I can find...I am looking at 163 Option Supercharger...and also a split board (make not decided yet). So my question is mainly about bindings, then. These boots will basically fit ANY binding, I think...but there is a monkey-wrench thrown in: Bindings: My present hardboot bindings for these Scarpas are Black Diamond Fritsche Freeride...great bindings for AT, but I think useless for a board unless the board is like 2 feet wide!...they just wouldn't fit...so they're out...they'll stay on my AT stuff. So I am looking for hardboot bindiings/plates that would fit the Scarpa's that would be easy and quick to change stance on-mountain, fit standard four-hole alignments, AND be able to switch to a Nordic setting for use on the split-board for skinning and route approaches in the flats, BUT still be able to do a decent hard-scrabble carve in the steep hard stuff. Some peaks have VERY HARD-crusty snow due to sublimation and day/night temperature differentials. Becomes like 45 degree slope hard-pack. I know that trying to find a binding that does ALL these well is a really a recipe for doing NOTHING well...but I am hopeful that there is maybe something out there that will fit this difficult bill. Any suggestions? If they DIDN'T need to switch to nordic for split-boarding, it would be an easy answer me thinks. Guess I am looking for some sort of plate/binding SUPER-BINDING that doesn't exist yet.

I agree...that was a fairly self-serving, testosterone-derived, pugnacious post that I myself made, but when I go through various back-posts and see what collective tongue-lashings that SOME hard-booters give to anyone that happens to ride soft-boots...giving impressions that hardboots are somehow the final and holy evolution of snowboarding and everyting softboot is simply 'knuckledragging', it just gets me going, is all. So when a softbooter says something that maybe is construed to them as a little insulting, THAT is a capital sin...but when hardbooters collectively insult fellow carvers and riders simply for the boots/bindings they choose, That is okay?? It seems that skiers and snowboarders get along better than hardbooters and softbooters. Why is that? The climbing forums are just the same, except they are even more pugillistic and more gear-bashing in those forums than anywhere. So if I offended any people that didn't deserve to be offended, I am sorry. That post was mostly addressed to a certain very few.

Carvingchef: I don't think you'll piss ppl off by saying that, and if you do...then that is there own fault. What you say is most definitely apropos and germane to the discusssion. I have no doubt what you say about the forum during the Olympics is right. There is, apparently, a small contingent here that is the "hardboot police"...although I consider them the "Hardboot Taliban"...as they seem that there is only THEIR way or no way....oh wait...that's the Norwegians... I would presume that if I pose questions in their holy hardboot thread such as "What is the best hardboot for shopping at Whole Foods M"arket?" or... "What is the best color hardboot to wear while meeting with the Pope at the Vatican?"...or "What angle should I keep my hardboot at while racing my Pinto?"...or more importantly: "What color should I paint the pedestal that I keep my hardboots on?...gold or chartruesse?"....that these questions would be perfectly fine...as they are hardboot questions. These Hardboot Taliban are an odd lot...one seems to depise all other forms of snowboard gear so much that he forbids his two youing kids to learn snowboarding (as there is no Alpine equipment for small kids yet), so he has them on skis INSTEAD of snowboards. Little kids are GREAT at learning snowboarding...it's a natural thing for them, Another just prefers to cover his ears and puts EVERYBODY he has a slight disagreement with on his "ignore" list. Another has a tendancy to go back and count people's posts so that he can see who has been naughty and who has been nice...(Santa's Workshop would be a good place for him...he can be Santa's list-keeper); this same elf believes that people should lurk for a year or three before they peep a word. Another one (think of Frosty) is just plain so pugillistic and pugnacious that he probably has dreams at night about hitting some softbooter in the back of the knees with his freecarve board while they're not expecting it. That's the Taliban at work. Yeah, I ride softboots...because while I spend most of every run either carving or high speed flatboarding, I still like to throw a decent method off some mid-slope kicker and land fakie and transition that fakie to smooth carve. There is no way I can set boots on a narrow carve board at 15 and 5 without hella toe-drag and there is no way I'm going to safely land a backside shifty stalefish with hardboots at 55/55. Maybe Jeremy Jones can and continue some sweet race carves directly after, but not me. So I adjust my 2-strappers and my stiff boots (I have a temporary plastic molded forward boot-tongue form that I use and skate lace keys for tightening for carve) to an aggressive carve stance if I want to carve ALL day, but mostly I stay at 15/5 so I can do both. I almost NEVER duck-foot. I have three places marked with a sharpie on my discs, keep my nut-driver with me, and OFTEN change my stance as needed through-out the day. I have 3 places marked on my discs, because I love AND have the ability to do 3 different types of boarding...carve, all-mountain and park/pipe. I have outshredded tons of hardbooters who thought they could outpace me on the mountain... they always look at my equipment after I blew them off with a WTF-look on their faces. It's truly hilarious. There are alot on here who think that softbooters are slow and ungraceful and can't do a true carve at speed. Well...I'll be at Wintergreen, VA this mid-week wearing a grey/black parka dark green hat and either red, yellow or black pants ('pending on temp) and a big black FatBob to prove them wrong if they can keep up. While they're "hugging the mountain"...I'll be already down at the bottom.If there is an old english vintage Land-Rover with a rack in the lot. that'll be me. I only say that because SOME in this forum think their niche is the Holy Grail and you're only fast if you're in hardboots. I've stopped counting the notches i've put on MY board. Incidently, ONE of the reasons I am here is because ODDLY enough I DO own hardboots of a sort...Scarpa Denaili XT Alpine Touring boots, these ones DO have the heat-moldable liners, and have been itching to try them out on a board...IF I can find a decent pair of bindings for them that aren't megabucks. My Black Diamond Fritsche Freeride randonnee bindings certainly wouldn't fit. ha ha. I would like a binding for them that I can switch back and forth between 15/5 AND say 55/55 or so....and then also put them on the used split-board i plan to get for skinning. Gravity is Life.

lonboarding: While I knew that Indiana had HUGE sand dunes (been to 'em, as a matter of fact...Indiana Dunes State Park, Chesterton), I would have NEVER thought that there were ski areas there. I've been through Indiana many times on my way back and forth from Ak to the east coast, I guess I've always been going through the central part and northern section of the state. Flat and cornfields and more cornfields. Heck of a football state, though...and basketball, but In wouldn't want to meet Bobby Knight on the slopes there...he'd probably throw a chair at me. Anyway, I checked your blog on Paoli Peaks...and sure enough!! Nice looking slopes! Nice rolling groomers with not a mogul or a tree in sight!!! A boarder's dream. What verticals do they have? 550 feet 600? Looks plenty of snow there!! You said something about Amish on skis in your blog...ha ha...picturing that puts a smile on my face!!...one hand holding on to their straw hat so it doesn't blow off.

Zler: Yeah...I know. I saw that vid....it cracked me up. The first 10 seconds of it, I thought they were serious! This same vidography team has another vid called "Aggressive Walking"....reminded me of times when my friends and I were in college and we'd walk around downtown without moving our arms at all. Just kept them plastered to our sides. Passersby would look at us, determine something wasn't quite right, but they couldn't figure out what...so they'd just sorta look at us, do a casual double-take...trying all the while to not look like they were looking. Used to crack us up. Sometimes, if one does something just slightly off the radar of normalcy...it is actually more befuddling than doing something totally whacked out crazy. Crazy, they can deal with...there's a box for that...gotta nice, neat label. But something just a little bit different, wee bit weird...nope, they can't deal with it...no box for that. People are funny, sometimes.

On your state by state poll can we check TWO different states?? 'Caause I am presently stuck in the Virginia "Flatlands" by the Chesapeake Bay, but my HEART is still up in Alaska. Ain't there a song about that...'cept it's Miami??? When I get back up there permanently starting this summer, most of the good spring snow will be gone. There is usually good corn snow through June and maybe early July, but after that it is iffy until it returns in September. Going boarding this week, tuesday or wednesday, but it is basically 100 bucks (or 50 beers...20 if microbrew) of fuel just get to Wintergreen and back...the nearest snow!!!!! So fewer rides on the board this year until I get back up to some shreddin' AK style. But a few rides is WAYYYY better than none at all. Any hills in Indy at all? Down here in easternb Virginia, they call a 20 foot rise in the road a hill. :o :o

AS usual Dr. D, you bring some meassure of sanity to what has become a wholly spiteful, myopic and pissy panty-raid. It seems every grouping of people will always have a percentage of ignorant bigots that make much of rest of the group look bad, all the while thinking that people agree their juvenile pettiness. There are at least 5 HERE. That type of mis-guided self-aggrandizing is as old as the hills. Politics in D.C. would sure be a lot different if there weren't arrogant bigots there. For one thing, in a sad way they make it marginally entertaining. I've learned to live with people like that a long time ago. There are ALWAYS a few. A softboot carve forum?? Sure....sounds good to me...the air is getting slightly stifling in here anyway. Maybe we'd even get some converts from the hardhead side...oops, I mean the hardboot side. ;)

"The fact that those preaching about tolerance and acceptance have a debilitating, morbid fear/hatred for sliding on the snow with two sticks instead of one has been blowing my mind since the early '80s. All these years since then I delude myself into thinking snowboarders will eventually grow out of it:smashfrea and realize that neither skiing or snowboarding would exist in it's current state without the complete interdependence of the two. Both in technically advanced construction as well as venue. People have been sliding and even carving on ski hills and riding ski lifts long before the 1st bent piece of plywood with old screw on ski edges came out of someones garage and was ridden using sorels with ski boot liners. The control on hard packed ski runs that metal edges gave to snow boards combined with the resulting proficiency of many riders is the main reason snow boards were 1st allowed at many ski areas by the ski patrol.".......posted by B0ardski. As a former skier and ski-racer of many years (well, okay...decades)...I agree with much of what you said concerning the link between skiers and snowboarders. The technology that arose from the modern, edged p-tex based ski gave birth, when coupled with Burton and Sims modifications of the "Snurfer", to the modern snowboard that we know and cherish today. And you are exactly right that skiing was in fashion LONG before metal ages....just HOW long, wqas recently found out...as they found a "ski" presumed to be between form 4000 BC to 2500 BC. Mind you, though, that they found only ONE...so this can perhaps be the world's oldest 'snowboard", as it was evidently fairly wide. Ha ha. If so, they must have been quite advanced during those years....advanced enough to see the grace and merit of a snowboard. Sadly, the sport saw 4000 to 6000 years of devolution while they the norsemen went back to two skis....not seeing the Truth and the Light and until the 1960's when snowboarding once again had a re-birth. It is presumed that those first snowboards of 6 or 4000 years ago were an immediate failure as these Norsemen couldn't out run the thirsty packs of wolves when doing the "Snowboard Hop and Scoot"...har har. On a serious note: You speak about snowboards first being allowed at areas by the ski-patrol. Now, while the National Ski Patrol Association DID have input into the initial banning of snowboards at most areas, it was really the ski areas themselves that decided to open selective areas up to snowboarding, NOT the ski patrol, as these areas and their owner lobbying parties bbegan to see that they were going to lose out in a BOOT LOAD of revenue, if they continued banning boarders. So, it was less of the Ski Patrol giving them the safety nod, as it was almost purely a monetary decision. To this day, of course, there are STILL to famous hold-outs: Alta, utah and Mad River Glen. Vermont. maybe one of these days, those two areas will likewise see the Light and theTruth of the One True Board. ;)

Ummm....yeah. I DO have a question. A very simple one, at that: What the heck is a "Skwal"??? I've never heard of it...not that that means anything...but seriously, what the dickens is it??? From the name alone, I picture in my mind some sort of mono-ski with a swallow tail ("Sk" + "wal" )...but I'm sure that can't be right. Is it like some new fangled "Snurfer" except with a binding??? I have never even seen a picture of one. What is it....please....the suspense is killing me!! Gravity IS Life.

"When skiing is more accepted than softbooting this is no longer a snowboard forum.".....posted by PhotoDad2001. Extremely WELL SAID !!! In the few scant days that I have been on here, I have counted exactly FOUR myopic, vindictive pugillists...that seem to be plants from the skiing world...(probably from Alta, Utah...they HATE boarders there) planted here to scare any would-be snowboarders back to their skiing world and hence re-populate their own legions of evil...har har. The rest of the folks here seem pretty cool and willing to embrace ALL carvers. Seriously, you four vidictive gear snobs, and you know who you are, sound like pissy skiers.

Well, I am not entirely familiar with the garmont's you have, but if they are at ALL similiar to my Scarpa Denali XT's...and they are just SLIGHTLY too big for your bindings, there MAY be enough plastic forward and rearward on your boots to carefully file away a little of the offending plastic. I have on two different occasions needed to do this on previous sets of randonee/alpine touring gear...mostly because I am always needing to jury-rig various pieces of gear together to make something work while sitting in one cabin or another and FAR away from the nearest fitter shop. I was lucky both times and it worked...and there was enough "meat" on the boot ends that I was able to do it. However, these were NOT brand new boots...so I would suggest it unless you happen to be sitting in a cabin...well...far from any fitter. Like I said, you may or may not have enough plastic on those boots for that filing away to work. But it's hateful to have to buy new bindings just to fit the boots, or new boots just to fit the bindings. I'm cheap!!! To me, a file, a leatherman and some ducktape...those are the three most important tools in yer kit. Nice set-up, though! I love those ultr-simple bindings!!! I have a pair of way over-complex Black Diamond Fritsche freeRides for my randonnee/alpine touring set-up. They're DIN 12, but they surely don't need to be THAT beefy...I'd NEVER be able to fit those things on a board!! If you have a good fitter nearby, I would take them in. I wouldn't worry about sending them back a third time...the guys at the shop would be used to it and would know that boots are one of your most important pieces of gear...as they are the main interface to your board. You can make a bad board work fairly well if need be, but a bad boot just plain sucks...and a bad binding can be deadly.

"Is that all you and Alaskan Rover can come up with now? Baiting everybody into a debate over the use of the word "alpine". Have fun with that."....posted by Heroshmero. Actually, I wasn't baiting anybody. I don't troll. I was and still am genuinely interested in the genesis of that term as it applies to snowboarding. In skiing, there is "alpine" and there is "nordic"...and then there are the cross-over such as telemark and randonnee/alpine touring. For skiing, it makes sense to differentiate alpine as going down a mountain, hill whatever and nordic as flatland, trail skiing as in cross-country, bi-athalon, etc etc. However, in the snowboarding realm, the term seems specious and illogical at best...as unless one spends 100% of one's time in the jib-park or half-pipe, ALL snowboarding is "ALPINE". I ask again: I wonder what I was doing while backcountry boarding in Alaska's Chugach mountains and Alaska Range and St. Elias if it WASN'T "alpine" boarding????...as I sure didn't see much flatland around. Can ANYONE give a decent explanation as to why hardbooters have oddly reserved the term for only them?? It seems quite illogical to me.

Yep...I have to deal with "Gear Snobs" (I.E. - "Nobs") all the time in the climbing world, too. Also in the kayaking world. A large majority of the GearSnobs don't have the skills and they know it. so they figure they make up for it by making fun of other people's gear instead. They don't seem to realize that instead, they just sound like d_ _ks. Pure 'skiers', all the way. Most on this board seem to be real cool, though. The 'skiers' know who they are. They're pretty easy to spot, always have been. ha ha. :)

Yeah...what he said!!! What he said. :lol::lol: Thanks, bro!! I couldn't agree more!!! I thought I got away from skiers a long time ago....guess not. I guess lots of these guys are just skiers at heart and always will be. But I always also noticed there are plenty of cool people on here to...'cept for the closet-skiers of course. Especially "skiers" like 'Snowman', who glibly purports to have NEVER come from softbootn'.

"With my new 2010 WCR metal arriving yesterday, I guess it's not too early to start the ogling. I named her "Beira" (Gealic Goddess of Winter). Hopefully Beira will bring an early and plentiful snowfall.".....posted by Algunderfoot Nice graphics!.....looks like Beira must have worked her spell like a charm, as this has been a hella nice winter pretty much EVERYWHERE....'cept maybe for Vancouver!...maybe Beira can spend the summer at Blackcomb to ensure that B.C. has a bountiful winter next winter!! ;)

What brought me over from ski-racing and rec skiing to boarding was NEVER the love of the pipe nor the jib-park. In fact, even when I was an 11 year old kid and most of my friends would head off to whatever skate-park or empty swimming pool with their shaved-wheel twin-tip decks, I always found more happiness and fulfillment doing long, sweeping s-curves on my wide-wheel tailboard down the slope of our street...dodging the odd car when I had to. We had this big old dog that would pull-me back up the hill if I held onto his leash and gave him a couple X-large Milkbones at the top. He was my chairlift...and the street was my "Aspen", even though it was the middle of summer. S-curves...all the way down. My friends thought I was crazy for not joining them at their homemade backyard ramps...I, in turn, thought THEY were crazy for not joining ME in pursuit of the speed and luscious g-force found on my self-made black-top "Aspen" that was Hoag Lane. They couldn't understand me, and I couldn't understand them. We ALL ended up with multiple bandages and bruises those summers...because like lady justice, gravity is blind. In essence, then, I have never really had an affinity for the park and the pipe. And even, when after much practice and many bruises, I became quite good at the pipe, I STILL didn't feel at home there. My racing history beat the idea into my head that one must treat one's equipment with respect, and so I just couldn't understand the jibber's desire to beat hell out of a perfectly good board on some rail or picnic bench....and DEFINITELY not over and over again. While I greatly admired the skill of some of the groms there (some of which would later be plastered all over the pages of TransWorld Snowboarding Magazine)...I had about as much of a chance of completing a 1080 or hooking a clean 540 McTwist as I had riding on the back of a unicorn to the planet Jupiter. I sort of drifted away from the pipe...and never felt at home with that wide-pant, trash-mouth set at the park. They were the kids perpetually in the back-row of 7th Grade class, trading spitballs and secrets...and I was STILL the front-row, chess-club nerd...even though we ware ALL easily in our twenties. I spent more and more time on the slopes, in the steeps, in the chutes...gradually and steadfastedly improving my high speed game. Remembering how one of my racing coaches used to describe how a Gyrfalcon made only minute adjustments of his wings while screaming down at near terminal velocity, I increased my own speed and my onslope dexterity until I re-acquainted myself with the love of the rush of speed. Isn't that what it's all about, in the end? Gravity IS life.

Back to that term "alpine"...can anybody explain the genesis of that term???...I mean, as it applies to snowboarding. The only thing I can think of is that it an old term, from back in infancy of snowboarding, when most boarding was still outlawed at most alpine areas and was thus relegated to the park and pipes, which are not necessarily 'alpine'...in nature. As a matter of fact, back in the day, many ski-areas had their jib-parks and pipes in unused parking areas and off-slope areas, because the boarders were not allowed to get tickets nor take their gear on the trails. That was a LONG time ago. The only reason I ask is because I guess all the remote boarding I was doing on various peaks in the Chugach Range and Alaska Range of Alaska and the St. Elias Range of the Yukon Territory must NOT have been "Alpine" boarding. Gee....I wonder what it was?? ;) Gravity IS life.

Buell, I was talking specifically about this particular forum...the "Carving Community" forum. I haven't visited ANY of those other forums on the site. But I do notice, and someone has pointed out in parallel, that in the subtext of this particular forum it says: "The Mother of all carving/hardboot/alpine discussion groups". The way it's worded makes the sub-categoty "carving/" fairly non-definitive, and thus non-exclusionary. Given that, though....there is one term i have NEVER understood, and that is the terrm: "Alpine". What?? As if there is such a thing as "Nordic" snowboarding!! In my humble opinion, and I may indeed be quite wrong, ALL snowboarding is ALPINE. So, what's up with the term??? Just askin'.

"Yes, we can embrace them which is why I voted yes. But that doesn't mean we need to talk about softboot stuff on the hard boot forum. Make another forum for soft booters. The hard boot forum should be about hard boot stuff..."...posted by Heroshmero. That's odd...I could have sworn this forum said: "Carving Community"....I didn't realize that it somehow subliminally said "hardboot forum". Sorry, my mistake. I'll have to put my 3-D Subliminal Message Glasses on ($34.95...at Rite Aid). Okay...I have them on now, and be danged if it still says "Carving Community". And now I see that looming large in that title is the word "Community". Isn't "community" a place where people with common interests get together? And one would, upon application of logic, presume that from that title, that the common interest is "carving". I still don't see where it says "hardbooters only...all others go away". I guess maybe I went too cheap on these subliminal message glasses. Dang. Wasted $35 bucks!!

"Last year at SES I was admiring a carver coming down under the lift. I assumed that he was a hardbooter. When he got closer, I realized that he was in soft boots. I later rode the lift with him and he had the passion for carving as much as I did. Should I have snubbed him?".....posted by John E. Excellent, HUGELY germane point, John E!! I am glad to someone utter those words. I take a lot of pride in my snowboarding skills, and moreover I take as much pride in my carving skills. It's not about what equipment you use to endeavor the carve, it's about the endeavor itself....it's about laying down that perfect carve on a blue sky day, when EVERYTHING seems to connect, and you can do no wrong. It's about those few scant seconds of nirvana...in a Shangra La of your own mind...when the snow, the mountain, gravity and yourself all become one beating entity...the heart of the Carve. If there is a spirit of the carve....softbooters share it also. The snow is not partisan...the mountain is not partisan...nor is the CARVE. Gravity IS life.

"Burton Serow, stiff enough for a softboot carver, vibrum soles, leather, warm. So ugly they are discounted everywhere:ices_ange"...by HairyWater. Nice-looking boots!!! I like them. Do they include an inner liner w/ separate laces?? Good to see someone's still making a decent softboot. They remind me of the white rubber bunny-boots (otherwise called mickey-mouse boots) that I would sometimes wear going to school in Fairbanks, Ak when it was 52 below.. I'll lookthem up...they look well-made.

I don't know about the Switch or the Burton Step-in, but man do those k2 Clickers such in deep powder!! I made the mistake of renting a pair for backcountry boarding in Wyoming...and found that the step-ins were CONTINUALLY getting clogged with snow, while I never had that same problem with my strappers in powder. As far as overall form and function and quality of materials & workmanship, though...I found the K2 Clicker boots and bindings to be extremely well-made and quite comfortable. I think overall, they were a great idea. For some reason, they never really caught on like K2 thought they would. I found their only drawback was in the pipe...as they were just too stiff for that.....plus they just compromised too much for the limited gain of being able to 'step-in' at the top of the chair....I almost always strap in while standing, anyway. Gravity Is Life.