Why use AT gear for touring if you can tele?

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Originally Posted by XtrPickels

I believe this video hits all the finer points of the tele vs AT debate

AtAnonymous from TTips
http://www.tahoebackcountry.net/vide.../atanon786.wmv

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to add to the irony of the situation, the maker of that vid has been on his tele skis lately.

:fmicon:

Thanks for all the input, the ideas and opinions posted were about what I expected. When the dust settled, I found that I could really relate to Cletus' post below:

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Originally Posted by Yossarian

Cletus <-- 1/3 alpine resort, 1/3 tele resort, 1/3 AT b/c.

1) I want true releasability in the backcountry, and my preferred Tele binding(s) don't have it
2) I want a neutral tour, no return spring or tension; this is not provided by my preferred binding, and further, I don't want to have to mess around with pivot points and whatnot just to have a neutral touring tele binding.

Basically, I tele when conditions inbounds are Bad to Fair (ie, groomers to corn to 6" of fresh), I alpine inbounds when conditions are Fair to Epic (ie, 6"+), and I tour anytime I want to avoid the inbounds scene, conditions, crowd, cost, and so on.

If I'm on tele, I don't like to go in avalanche terrain.

If I'm on AT, I don't like to huck.

If I'm on alpine gear, I have to deal with other people, and have my heels fixed down.

So basically, I'm choosing any given day between the lesser of the evils.
Or, maybe, to put it more positively, on any given day I'm choosing the best ride for the environment I want to be in.

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Thanks Cletus :biggrin:



P.S. Irrespective of what gear is on my feet, I don't huck.

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Originally Posted by frorider

to add to the irony of the situation, the maker of that vid has been on his tele skis lately.

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Good. If not, he’d have to take the “Free Heel Tahoe” sticker off his VW bus.

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Originally Posted by Telepath

Tele. I don't think he skied one day of alpine at home last year, these days he only does that when we get him in trouble over here. Besides his alpine slippers are yellow and it does look like he's wearing red in the pic. Hop is one guy who doesn't seem to mind flying off stuff on tele gear (though when you're planning on landing assfirst the gear issue becomes rather irrelevant I guess ;))

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I'll second this. Hop is pretty much the honorary president of the Kirkwood Airforce and he's always on teles.