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SIA Preview: Salomon Guardian 16

Yes, it’s a new A/T binding from Salomon: the Sidecountry/Freeride-oriented Guardian 16. The Guardian isn’t just a shot across the Marker Duke’s bow; it’s ramming speed with all guns blazing. No published weight is available yet for the Guardian, but the Salomon people told me it will be within a few ounces (lighter?) of the Duke’s five pounds, 12.5 ounces per pair (more…)

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SIA Winter Park: A Great Time

Just wrapping up the second day of SIA’s on-snow demo at Winter Park Resort, and thought I’d give a few quick hits on the skis I tried. Some or all of these will blossom into full reviews, complete with my witty and occasionally risque first-impressions video clips, but for now, this will have to do. Let me say again that it is indeed a great time to be a skier. Technology advances in really the past year or so have completely changed the market. Here’s what struck me as notable: (more…)

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Marker Duke, Tour Updates

I’m here in Denver for the annual SIA Snowshow, wandering the convention floor and browsing the battery of ski gear booths to see if I can find anything interesting. Yesterday I got a little information about Marker’s Duke and Tour bindings which may qualify (more…)

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Dahlgren Sno Comp

Alpaca is the secret ingredient in Dahlgren’s new sock lineup, including the Sno Comp, a sheer, cushionless ski sock that uses a fairly complicated Merino/Alpaca/Synthetic blend.

For the curious, Alpacas are those not-quite Llamas found in South America. Alpaca wool is said to be lanolin-free, less irritating than regular wool, and thus (perhaps) a better choice for people who (more…)

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Black Diamond Warrant

I’m going to coin a new term to try to capture the essence of Black Diamond’s Warrant, part of the revamped 2012 Black Diamond ski lineup: let’s call it ‘de-specialized’.

The Warrant replaces the highly-regarded but aging Kilowatt, a ski known for its versatility. Like the Kilowatt, the new Warrant is also a generalist, but it adds a surprising degree of hard-snow capability (more…)

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Exped DownMat 7

Yes, there is down (as in feathers) in Exped’s DownMat-series sleeping pads, which include the DownMat 7 and the DownMat 9, in lengths from short to long.

Putting feathers inside your sleeping pad may sound a little strange, but it works out to have exactly the same effect as putting feathers in your jacket: it makes it warmer without making it heavier (more…)

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The Return of the Quiver

In the good old days you needed two or three pairs of skis, depending on how serious you wanted to be on the race course. You would either tilt GS or Slalom, and ride those as your go-to board, and then typically you’d keep an old pair as rock skis for the early season, and those rock skis usually doubled as your powder skis, because they’d soften up over time and get sweeter in the deep (more…)

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Canon XF100

I understand that Canon’s XF100 is currently one of the very hottest items in the compact professional camcorder market, and I understand why.

But to my eye, the XF100 is compromised by the inescapable limitations of its sensor, and that compromise overshadows the XF100′s otherwise-outstanding features. What’s good about the Canon XF100? Well, it’s hard to know where to begin (more…)

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Scarpa Charmoz GTX

Scarpa’s Charmoz GTX is a light Alpine/Mountaineering boot in the same class as the very popular La Sportiva Trango S EVO.

On my scale the two boots are almost identical. The Charmoz weighs three pounds, five ounces per pair (size 42.5), exactly 0.5 ounces lighter than the Trango S. Both boots are lightly insulated, waterproof (more…)

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Sony NEX-5N

Sony’s next-generation NEX-5N looks pretty much the same as its immediate predecessor, the intriguing NEX-5A, but there the similarities end.

The NEX-5N is in many ways the realization of the potential that the 5A could only hint at. The camera is capable of simply staggering image quality, no longer approaching DSLR quality but rather (more…)

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