Garmont's new women's NTN boot: The Priestess
K2 Paybacks with NTN bindings.
During the 2009-10 ski season, I was disappointed to discover that none of the boot companies were making a women's NTN boot. See blog post. As promised, in 2010 Garmont released a women's specific NTN boot called the Priestess, which accommodates sizes 23-27.5.
After watching my husband ski the NTN's and work out some of the kinks (details below) last season, I garnered my new K2 Paybacks, NTN bindings, and Garmont's Priestess NTN boot size 25.0 and hit the slopes this year with a whole new setup. Previously I was on the K2 Dawn Patrols with Karhu's 7tm Power bindings and Garmont's Elektra women's boot size 24.5.
Garmont's Priestess.
I'm using the green power tubes in the NTN bindings with the tension set between 1 and 2 depending on the snow conditions (1 for powder and 2 for hard pack). As expected, the fit of this Garmont boot is narrower than their traditional telemark boot. After some boot tweaking: thermo-molding the liners and some ankle padding to fill in the volume added by the bigger size, I was surprised how easily I adjusted to the new system. I find the NTN system very responsive and the Priestess boot was easy to flex right out of the box. I'm also a ski patroller and NTN provides a greater level of stability while pulling a toboggan. In short, these bindings and the Priestess rock!
One main kink: the NTN bindings may accumulate ice and snow underfoot.
~ Amy Bauer (K2 Women's SW Regional Alliance Member)
Backside Brothers in dry Chamonix
Last few weeks are not written in history books as the snowiest in Chamonix. Local old guides say that "Winter has been cancelled" or "It´s puking snow in February", depending who you ask. Go figure.
Chamonix is the place we love to be. So we do whatever is good with the weather given. Now it´s cold and bluebird sky. That means perfect randonnee conditions.
Here is a webisode from a trip we did to Swiss side, Trient. It is a kind of reality check after all this powder-mania going on 
Ski hard!
jani and skipe
Norwegian coastal pow
Winter usually starts slow in Norway, and normally has it's high when lifts are closing and slush cups are on in most other places. January has been really good this year though, and the west coast has been at it's best, receiving one big storm after the other and staying cold enough for the rusult to be pow.
Photo: Sverre Hjornevik - www.digitalnatur.no
There are lots of little resorts and ski hills on Norway's west coast, that are really worth visiting on a powder day. Weekdays you can find yourself pretty much all alone in the lifts some days, and mostly it's just the locals and no tourists skiing threre at all this time of year. Myrkdalen near Voss is one favorite, with it's non existing liftlines and pretty much endless sidecountry terrain as long as you don't mind a little Norwegian bush-skiing at the bottom, and got some a cross country skating skills to pull out of your backpack for the road back. Here is a little edit from one of the good days I've had there this month:
-Torkel
Roman pow shots
Hey guys
After a really good start into the 10/11 winter season, with 2 weeks of snowfall, we now had 3 weeks of bullshit pow conditions! We had temperatures, which we normaly have in spring time - super warm and wet snow. Perfect to get back into park shredding after 2 years and jump the kickers at mayrhofen. Now weather changed and it´s snowing outside, looking forward to get back into the backcountry and charching the Darksides, like last year at this time check out the pics by Peter Mathis.
cheers
r
Pow in Austria
The early season brought some Powder to Austria,
check Roman Rohrmosers edit from some days in the early Dezember:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uE7KCJ5KLI&feature=player_embedded
Midweek powder at Mt. Baker, Washington
I don't have much to say about the past few days except it's been good at Mt. Baker, Washington. This video should give you an idea of a classic "depths of winter" blizzard at my favorite place to ski on the planet. This sort of mini golf terrain is what we ski when it's nuking out, the avy danger is too high and the visibility is too poor to ski the bigger lines. Enjoy!
Cover story - Brant (SE)
Ended up on the cover of Swedish ski mag Brant's latest issue. Guess the front page is pretty much the high score of the ski photography game, well maybe after a giant billboard right across the street from the School of the Swedish Bikini Team. ... Stoked. Thought I'd just share how me, my K2 Rockers and photographer Mikael Pilstrand ended up with the shot.
This was actually the winter of 2009. I was schredding the Alps along with Pilstrand and now deceased Fredrik "Frippe" Ericsson, who tragically died on his way up to try and ski K2 this summer. We had hit up the Italian Dolomites, gotten some good snow, good coffe, good pizza and some really nice Couloir runs in there, before heading to France and Frippes place in Chamonix to get a piece of the big dump there and on both the Swiss and Italian side of the Mt Blanc. The alps were getting pounded and we were in another ski area every morning welcoming it with open arms (and a pair of rockered skis, at least mine).
Frippe in Canazei, Dolomites, Italy.
Chamonix.
Anyway. I decided to make it east again, and got on the train to Switzerland, to the town of Disentis and the ski area where a dump like this can last for weeks before it is all tracked. Pilstrand joined for a day before going to a job in St Anton, Austria, and it turned out to be quite productive. It's of course a luxury to be in an uncrowded place like Disentis when the conditions are perfect, but of course there are a couple other factors who needs to be thre in order to get the cover, for example a photographer that has got his shit together, to put it that way. Pilstrand is experienced and quite on top of things, and we actually ended up with two covers that same day.
See what I mean... even in the piste there is hardly any tracks... And yes that stuff over there is lift access. More correctly, it is actually under the lift.
For me that day and that cover is pretty much the essence of what I'm in this game for. Big fields of untouch pow to make some slashing telemark turns in. Then I'm happy and can go home .... or get on the lift and do it again.
Taking shots like this can be a hazzle though, because it steals a lot of time that could have been spent on a couple of additional lines instead, but at least when it ends up on the cover that makes the wating seem a bit more worth while. Another good thing about this show is that it was taken in a line and not just as a one-shot-wonder. That way as a skier you get a bit more out of it, doing some real skiing when it happens and not just a turn for the camera. This was on a ridge with nice light coming in from the side, where Pilstrand could find a comfy position, sit back and regret that he had stopped using snus, and do some shooting with the tele lens as me and Austrian skier Tine Hüber did a couple of laps and had some fun at "work".
Hoping for another winter of the same deep pow!
-Torkel Karoliussen /K2 Backside Team
My favorite K2 dealer in the Alps
There are tons of ski resorts and ski towns in the European alps, with, naturally, a bunch of sport shops. A lot of these have got their shit together with a fat K2 lineup in store, and one of them is my definite #1 choice.
Engelberg is a favorite spot for pow hungry skiers and snowboarders from all over the world. Even the Swiss themselves, who often try to avoid the herds of foreign snow destroying intruders by staying in the few local secret spots left in the country, can’t deny Engelbergs quite unbeatable combination of easy access, perfect mix of Alp village feeling and freeride spirit, good snow statistics, high altitude and extremely easy accessible grand freeride terrain.
Heli skiing, only it's the thing you're sitting in that spins, it's attached to a wire, it's full of asian tourists and plays really really bad music.
... and you can skip the guide, ride where ever you want and slide right into this killer terrain straight from the piste.
For me there is even another reason for always swinging by Engelberg when I’m in the Alps: Dani’s Okay Freeride Shop. 100% dedicated, 100% freeride and backcountry focused and 100% welcoming and laidback feeling is the stats for this place. Dani, who is a skier himself, though with a pair of worn out knees that he’s working on a pretty high tech hardware solution for, runs the place pretty much himself and is the man to come to when the pow is getting deep and you need to get some rockers, when you’ve got a weird gear problem or when you just want to have a coffee and check your emails to see if your girlfriend has decided to terminate your relationship because you have been “snowed in” for too long, your bank account to see if your mom has transferred any money or the snow forecast to see if the Snow God is going to be your daddy for the next week too.
coffee machine, couches, beer, ski mags and ski movies in the chill out deptmnt
very experienced super skilled technicians in the back
advanced telemark binding costomizing... Okay, no probs.
Dani is rockin rockers, flying the K2 flag high, renting out the fat planks and always greeting you with a smile, at least if you bring him some snus.
Big ups to Dani and Okay Shop, and see you there this season too!
-Torkel Karoliussen
pow pow in austria
hey guys
Last 2 days were probably one of the best pow days in my life!
Austria or pretty much only the southwest side got 4 feet in 2 days!!! We were shredding the Hintertuxer glacier, my local ski area. On the first blue bird day there was TOO MUCH snow. We only did a few pow turns on the slopes, on the 2nd day the fire was on!
check out some pics
hell yeahhhhh so sick....faceshots all day long
Roman diving
cheers
roman
Fall Prep Work
While many of us are getting prepared for ski season with longer runs or tuning up our skis, the ski operations and guides are doing their own tune-ups. K2 BackSide athlete Evan Stevens sent us this look behind the scenes up in British Columbia, where he's getting things ready for winter at his backcountry lodge, Valhalla Mountain Touring.
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