For decades have been summer backpacking in the Sierra Nevada where summer snowfields are common. This summer of 2017 there were more snow fields than ever. And for occasional day amusements, we have always enjoyed a bit of playing around on the snow glissading and stand up boot skiing down slopes.
Glisading can be ok though we usually do so on less steep slopes sans ice axe by sitting on a piece of those blue plastic tarps so our pants stay dry and use our feet for breaking. However as an old bump skier, I've always more enjoyed stand up boot skiing. Well except boots especially those with Vibram soles tend to be rather resistive by design except in really soft snow.
So was wondering last week when I was doing so on a big snow field up at Piute Pass at 11.4k feet if someone else out there had ever thought about and designed some crude simple lightweight boot adapter one might categorize as anti-crampons, that one might attach to the soles of mountaineering and hiking boots to make boot skiing smoother and more reasonable? I'd bet if someone could design something to make such actually fun and lightweight, that not a few backpackers would be interested.
Glisading can be ok though we usually do so on less steep slopes sans ice axe by sitting on a piece of those blue plastic tarps so our pants stay dry and use our feet for breaking. However as an old bump skier, I've always more enjoyed stand up boot skiing. Well except boots especially those with Vibram soles tend to be rather resistive by design except in really soft snow.
So was wondering last week when I was doing so on a big snow field up at Piute Pass at 11.4k feet if someone else out there had ever thought about and designed some crude simple lightweight boot adapter one might categorize as anti-crampons, that one might attach to the soles of mountaineering and hiking boots to make boot skiing smoother and more reasonable? I'd bet if someone could design something to make such actually fun and lightweight, that not a few backpackers would be interested.
