Five days, 40 testers, 7,000 skiable acres, 400-plus new skis, boots and bindings, a few feet of snow, 60 cases of beer. Those are the ingredients for the Backcountry Magazine Gear Test Week. And when you mix it all together, you get one wild week and the industry’s best Gear Guide. Here’s a quick look at how it all unfolded.
DOUG STOUP: THE ICEMAN
From playing NCAA soccer to a successful modeling and acting career to being the top polar explorer of his time, Doug Stoup is an enigma. Host Adam Howard recently journeyed to Antarctica with Stoup and their conversation ranges from Doug’s personal training of A-list Hollywood actors to near death experiences; adventures with Doug Coombs; and taking novice skiers to the South Pole.
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TELE MIKE RUSSELL: TURNS FOR ALL
Tele Mike Russell grew up as a sharecropper’s son in Delaware before attending college and becoming an executive in the pharmaceutical industry. Then he watched the second plane hit the World Trade Center and decided he’d better follow another path, this one to skiing in Colorado, where he’d go on to find a family in the National Brotherhood of Skiers and help found its backcountry program.
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ERIC BLEHM: MEET YOUR HEROES
Eric Blehm’s roots in snowboarding run deep. He started riding during the sport’s infancy, and after college became an editor at Transworld SNOWboarding Magazine. Years later, he was in a lift line when a fellow rider saw the “Craig Kelly is my Co-Pilot” sticker on his board, and asked Blehm: “Who is Craig Kelly?” He was floored by the notion that there were snowboarders out there who didn’t know who Craig was. And this inspired him to write The Darkest White.
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We’ve compiled a database of U.S. resorts with a little about each individual policy—where and when skinning is allowed, whether or not it’s free during operating hours and the link directly to the resort’s guidelines.
Scarpa TX Pro [Left] TX Pro | scarpa.com | $849 | 3,090g | Last: 102mm | Sizes: 24.5-31 [Right] TX Pro … [Read More...]
Though we send brand invites for our annual Gear Test Week in February and have finalized submissions weeks … [Read More...]
Hi,
You ran a little blurb about a unique binding, quite techy, underfoot attachment, I think it was in the latest gear review (which I seem to have misplaced). I think it required a special boot as well. European thing, not a Dynafit type but close. Can you please reply with a link to this?
Thanks, Jef
The Telemark Tech System is the one that comes to mind. Reviewed in full detail in the Gear Guide: https://backcountrymagazine.com/gear/2014-editors-choice-awards-bindings/
Or maybe it was the Pierre Gignoux system reviewed on p. 42 of our October issue?