A Do Everything Touring Binding, With a Few Caveats

By Wally Phillips March 24, 2011

First off, this is the best binding for going uphill with anything you are doing. Period. Getting in and out of the binding takes a little bit of practice. Setting the climbing height of the heel piece needs about twice that amount of practice. But, once you get that down, you'll be eating uphill vertical.

Going downhill. I know the minimalist design may look sketchy, but it does work well to very well in a backcountry setting (small to large amounts of pow and corn snow). The only time it gets sketchy is when you are running harder snow on a resort.

A few issues though. I feel this binding has a width limit to it. I mounted this binding on a 191cm Surface Live Life (120mm waist) and side-hilling on this setup in hard snow is a nightmare along with trying to turn on really hard snow on steeper pitches. Also, I feel there is a reason why Dynafit does not make a ski wider than 105mm. Try to keep it to that or less unless the skinning is technically easy. (It is most likely true that I have also mounted this binding too far forward on the ski which may not allow me to reach the meat of the ski as well as I should)

Overall, it is a fantastic touring binding which got a decent athlete doing over 1,000 vertical an hour after two trips and also has me enjoying the pow turns on the way down.

View Details: Dynafit TLT Vertical FT Binding

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