Me: 5' 11" 230

Skis: 180 Atomic Heli Daddies
Boots: Dynafit Freeride Aero TF
Bindings: Marker Dukes


So its been a grand total of two days on the new setup, but thus far I'm REALLY impressed. This is a no compromise downhill setup that actually tours pretty well.

Day one was spent at Mount Snow with the mini-animal. I'd found last year that it was easier to deal with herding the little guy towards the lift if I was in AT boots vs Alpines, plus if I needed to carry him or his stuff, it was easier with lighter weight AT gear. So I decided to give my new Aero Freerides and dukes a spin.

One of the places I really noticed the excess stack of Freerides was skiing on green circles with mini-animal, the binding just didn't feel right at slower speeds due to the stilt like feeling. Plus the lack of responsiveness in AT boots and Freerides was mildly annoying when skiing hardpack . I'd switched to dynafits inbounds to remedy some of these problems with some success, but I then had to deal with the vibrations from the lack of dampening in Dynafits. In both cases the ski felt somewhat "vague" underfoot, which was tolerable but not ideal.

This was a whole different feeling, not only did I feel lower to the ski, but I couldn't detect ANY slop whatsoever. It was extremely nice being able to ski with the mini-animal on the learn to ski harness without having to guess where my skis were. I could get immediate and definitive pressure to my edges as soon as I desired it. I also noted that there was a lot of aft and lateral stability in the Freeride Aero, coupled with an slightly softer forward flex and it really felt just like my alpine boots. SUPER important when I needed to go from making a pizza to making french fries I use the rest of the day on the bunny lift to dial in the fit to my liking by making sure the buckles were in the right gates and adjusted properly.

Encouraged by my bunny hill session, I decided to ramp up and ski K-marts opening day with Dukes and Aeros. I arrived at K early and decided to test the dukes uphill capabilities. So I flipped into touring mode and headed up. Again I was pleasantly surprised, while they're not going to replace my dynafits any time soon, the pivot point feels good and the stride is fairly natural. As has been previously mentioned the heel elevator is annoying when changing modes and I found kneeling down is easier then trying to use a ski pole.

Unfortunately I was only able to skin about 400' of vert because I ran into the sterotype patroller with a God complex and a ski pole shoved up his ass sideways. I had picked a trail with natural cover on it and had deliberately chosen a route AWAY from the base area and far away from where the snowcats and guns were working. Still he skied down to me like I was committing murder, proceeded to chew me out for being in a closed area and demanded that I turn around and head back to the base area. I didn't want to be a jerk but I wanted to know how they were getting around the "ingress/egress" clause in their lease with the state of Vermont, so in a reasonable and measured tone I asked if he'd give an explanation as to why I couldn't skin natural snow on state land, He continued to act like a dick and threatened to pull my pass or lift ticket. At this point it wasn't worth giving the dude any legit excuse to gank my pass on opening day so I turned around and went back to the base.

Anyway despite that I did get a chance to ski them in a variety of conditions from dust on crust to heavy manmade crud, to bulletproof and in each condition the Duke provided not only a slop free interface, but I had no instances of the dreaded Marker pre-release. Especially worth noting is how well the binding holds on hardpack, my guess is due to the wider footprint and slop free interface. But in any event, I've never gotten that kind of grip with AT boots and a touring binding before.

I'm pretty damn impressed with Marker right now, hopefully the durability is up to snuff because from a downhill performance standpoint, so far the Duke is head and shoulders above anything I've skied.