New to ski mountaineering,

[PowderHounder]

Hey all,

 

Been skiing my whole life, and mountaineering for years. Finally decided to combine the two and get into touring/ski mountaineering. Had an incredible winter/spring so far. Using the Dynafit TLT 5 boots and love them. Have already hit a couple peaks here in the PacNW on them.

 

I have a couple questions. I often see videos of people and pics here in the forums crossing shallow creeks and large puddles in their skis and boots. Is there some trick here I'm missing to not ending up with soaking wet feet? (example here

)

 

Second question is around gators for these boots. "Walk mode" consists of keeping the top buckle loose, which causes the buckle to protrude quite a bit around the calf, I have yet to see a gator that will accommodate this. (Have tried XL size of both OR's and MH's mountaineering gator). What to people do around this? I know much of the time is spent on skis, where this isn't an issue, but there are def times where I find snow getting packed into the boot, especially on bigger mountains in pitches where it's not feasible to tour for a while.

 

Thanks!

[Dane]

Welcome to the dark side. You got the sheetz. TLTs boots are amazing.

 

I actually take my skis off when crossing creeks unless there is snow to ski across...but that is just me ;-)

 

Gaiters? Most use their pants or tights with the TLTs. No gaiters. I use either running or bike tights (best) or a pair of Arcteryx Gamma LT pants. Deep post holing in just the boots though can be a problem unless you cut a buckle slot in the pants as Dynafit does in their touring pants. The idea is no gaiter is so you can easily/quickly take advantage of the boot design by flipping from walking to ski mode and back to walking again.

 

http://www.dynafit.com/product/pants/gallium-flex-dst-m-pnt

 

Look here for more ideas:

 

http://slcsherpa.blogspot.com/

 

http://www.getstrongergolonger.com/

 

http://slc-samurai.blogspot.com/

 

and a search here on anything about BC skiing will be worthwhile as well

 

http://www.wildsnow.com/

[caverpilot]

The trick to not getting your feet wet is to stay out of the creek! Seriously, we did Diamond Peak two weeks ago and I crossed a snow bridge on a small creek near the trailhead, and my buddy punched through and it topped his boots - 15 minutes into the hike! Good news, though, if it is a hot enough day and tough enough hike your feet are gonna be wet anyway! I told him to suck it up and keep hiking... they "evened out" pretty quick!

 

Okay, now to your question - in pow/slush/post hole conditions I use my Mountain Hardware full-zip shell pants, which have an elastic built-in gaiter that goes over the calf buckles. Then, I unzip from the top, down to the knee, for ventilation. A lot of folks on here suggest just wearing soft-shell pants, which is great except for exactly these conditions.

 

I always pack a spare pair of socks in my day pack (Think Maurice Herzog and Annapurna - socks can be used as gloves, gloves can't be used as socks) for those hours-long bluebird summits - I've been known to take off my boots, dry my liners, and start down with fresh socks. (Of course, that's only happened a couple of times, but it was nice!!)

 

Have fun!!!