Great slackcountry binding

By Carlitoews Ranked #63 - Alpine Touring Bindings February 22, 2009

I have logged many days this season with these bindings (Binding Size: S, Skis 175cm, 107/103/120, 305mm boot sole). The standard brakes work well with this waist, but anything more than 105mm go with the wider brakes. Given the low snowpack in SW BC this year they have seen a lot of BC days. I use alpine boots mostly and can keep up with my friends who mostly run AT boots and Fritschis. I run a DIN of 10. They are just like DH bindings when locked down: ie. no sloppiness like the diamirs tend to have. They raise the skier up higher as well, so I needed longer poles than i would normally use in-bounds, but that's just me, I'm picky about poles.
The only downfall of the binding is changing the heel elevators when touring... Make sure you practice this before you're on the snow. It is somewhat tricky to switch from 5 to 10 degrees as the mechanism is somewhat hidden beneath the binding... I have it figured out now, but it does require a bit of a balancing act and you look kind of goofy if you are unprepared for the switch beforehand, especially on a steep skintrack! Other than this feature, I would have given 5 stars. The 30mm setback for climbing really works nicely and I have never slipped on steep skintracks (albeit I do have full width skin coverage and only weigh 150lb).

Somebody below wrote a review named 'junk'. The bindings are somewhat spring loaded and have to be pressed flat ( easily done) before switching modes, I would wager the bindings weren't set to ski mode properly.

View Details: Marker Baron 12 Ski Binding

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