knappster99 Posted January 22, 2007 Share Posted January 22, 2007 When I was out on St Helens on Sunday, I ran into a couple with some homemade skis, Mark and Pat to be exact. The bindings allow normal boots to be worn and are free heeled. I was wondering if anyone else talked to them and their thoughts on the skis. After snowshoeing around this winter, skiing definitely looks like the way to go for both ascent and descent. They were planning on selling them locally for ~$400, which sounds reasonable. Any thoughts/recommendations? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skeletor Posted January 23, 2007 Share Posted January 23, 2007 Not to change the subject, but how were conditions on the mountain? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knappster99 Posted January 23, 2007 Author Share Posted January 23, 2007 Unfortunately, a late start and lack of sleep only got us 2-3 miles up the trail. Below where you cross the creek is a few inches of soft stuff on top of a hard crust (packed on the trail) but above there that soft layer was gone on exposed slopes. I was on snowshoes but there were boot tracks continuing past our stopping point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blake Posted January 23, 2007 Share Posted January 23, 2007 When I was out on St Helens on Sunday, I ran into a couple with some homemade skis, Mark and Pat to be exact. The bindings allow normal boots to be worn and are free heeled. Â Sounds just like Silvrettas that you can get for a lot less than $400! Â Pandora was selling a pair of skis mounted with these bindings, plus skins, for $325 last week. You can wear ski or climbing/mountaineering boots in these. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knappster99 Posted January 23, 2007 Author Share Posted January 23, 2007 Pandora was selling a pair of skis mounted with these bindings, plus skins, for $325 last week. Â Where? What's that website? Â The difference between the silvretta's and those homemade ones is that *any* boot can be used and just strapped in similar to snowshoes (he was going up the next day in cross-trainers!). They were also waxless so no skins necessary! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knappster99 Posted January 23, 2007 Author Share Posted January 23, 2007 Oops, now I get it, Pandora (user) was selling some... sorry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHOOSKI Posted January 30, 2007 Share Posted January 30, 2007 (edited) Howdy folks, this is Mark and Pat, the ones who made those skis. What a pleasant surprise. We were out skiing again on Sunday and bumped into a lot of nice people, one was a man who works at REI's corporate offices and he chatted with us about our skis. During the conversation he said that we and our skis were mentioned on this website. WOW - cool! Thanks for all the input. We like those silvretta bindings, but ours take any normal boot (or cross-trainer if you're silly enough to try it!). Are you Dan the musician we met on the mountain? Come on out and play on a pair of our skis one day, we just started building the production version, they won't look homemade. Thanks for mentioning our skis and us. Hope to ski with you soon! Â Edited January 30, 2007 by SHOOSKI Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHOOSKI Posted January 30, 2007 Share Posted January 30, 2007 Just want to say thanks for your input. Again, the reference to the silvretta bindings was very useful. Just to clear a few things up, we started building these skis just for fun and we got a little carried away and they turned out to outperform our expectations. We've had many people ask us to get some production models going so we're trying real hard to do that. The price is not $400, but my goal is to try to put a package deal together that should be less than $400. They are very short and wide with large side cut so you can go on very tight and technical terrain. We're hoping to get a few made up in the next few weeks so we can go out with friends for testing and feedback. Hey Blake, you seem pretty knowledgeable, when we get these skis done come out and play on them, we could use your input. The worse case senario is we could meet up and have a great day out in the snow. Can't be all bad, can it? All you need is ski poles, your favorite snow boots, be in condition and an interest in just having fun. That's what we do 3 times a week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHOOSKI Posted January 30, 2007 Share Posted January 30, 2007 Sorry, this was supposed to be a message to Knappster99, so it's a repeat. Howdy, this is Mark and Pat, the ones who made those skis. What a pleasant surprise. We were out skiing again on Sunday and bumped into a lot of nice people, one was a man who works at REI's corporate offices and he chatted with us about our skis. During the conversation he said that we and our skis were mentioned on this website. WOW-cool! Thanks for all the input. We like those silvretta bindings, but ours take any normal boot (or cross-trainer if you're silly enough to try it!) Are you Dan the musician we met on the mountain? Come on out and play on a pair of our skis one day, we just started building the production version, they won't look homemade. Thanks for mentioning our skis and us. Hope to ski with you soon! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knappster99 Posted January 30, 2007 Author Share Posted January 30, 2007 Yep, this is Dan . Glad to hear you got in contact with another one of us REI'ites. We're everywhere now (not always a good thing!). I'll have to make it out there again, it was a blast. Give me a PM when you get some extra skis around, I'd love to try them out. They're looking better than the skiboards i've been looking into for BC skiing. I was going to put some silvrettas on real wide, 110cm long skiboards and ascend with skins. Check it out: http://skiboards.com/messageboard/showthread.php?t=1693&highlight=grimper Have fun out there guys, I'm jealous... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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