Jonathan S

Comprehensive guide to all the ski lines in the Presidentials, including some especially obscure ones (many of which are alas almost never skiable). Full disclosure that I received my copy for free in exchange for providing some of the information. Although I think that speaks well of the author for having reached out extensively to avid Presidentials skiers. Either way, if you plan on doing any skiing in the Presidentials, this book is a must!

This is such an insanely brilliant design! The only drawback is that I found myself wondering why I hadn’t thought of this earlier on my own. Actually, I had, cannibalizing a pair of BD swappable sole blocks (that weighed almost as much as my skimo race boots). But my design was overly complex, so I didn’t work all that well. This design by contrast is wonderfully simplistic, which is why it works so well. So well that no matter how well you think your current setup works for waxing and scraping, yo...

I've had these on three pairs of skins, two of which have plush so worn down that they're long since retired from frontline duty. However, the race tips on those skins are still pretty much like new! Once those skins are eventually retired totally, even from late-spring and summer snow that requires little grip, I will definitely reuse these tips on other skins purchased off-the-roll.

And eight years later ... funny to read my description of the socks, since I now use them for ... skiing! Specifically, I wanted the thinnest sock possible for summer ski mountaineering in my old PG boots (shown in that picture on the far right, but now considerably more beat-up at almost 1.9 million earned vertical feet) that are a bit too small for me, such that I dremmel down all the foam in the toe box. I also want a sock that stay up over my calves and not ride down so that my bare skin is up against t...

I bought this out of desperation years ago when I had the Scarpa Alien 1.0 race boots with the sock-style liner: no, not a bikini-style partial height liner, but a full-height liner, no tongue, no overlap, just a long tight liner … that was a struggle to get on, in any conditions, in any context. First I bought a long metal shoe horn at a regular store. But that just didn’t work. Then some searching revealed this, from some sort of etailer catering to alpine downhill skiers seemingly incapable of putting...