Touring on rockered skis

Drail

Drail

Active member
hey there. so i'm going to buy a new pair of skis for next year, i've got my park skis (movement joysticks) and my skiing skis (k2 maden''s), but i'm in need of a full on powder/touring ski. i've got normal downhill bindings on my k2's and the trekkers aren't doing it for me any more so i'm going for a nice touring set up. but here's the thing. i've been trying rockered skis out lately and they're fun as hell - totally interested in buying a pair. i mean, they're going to be my pow/touring skis so having a sweet rockered ski would be good... the only thing is the skinning part.

some friends and i were talking about it and the system seams a little flawed when you are on a packed skin trail due to the lack of surface area on the base. does anybody have experience with touring on rockered skis?
 
I'm on the same page with you. I have a slightly bent pair of Hellbents that I'm going to use for touring and I now have a set of EP Pros with Jesters for non touring. My thoughts are that unless you are touring with guys on really skinny and light weight gear, than it won't make much difference. I guess really steep stuff on harder snow will be different because of the contact area, but look at the old approach skis from K2 for snowboarders... They are tiny. I think the rockered touring set up will far out way with all the positives. I have done a bit of traversing on my EP's and I usually just start a new track anyway. I think that will be the answer. When in doubt, or in a struggle, start a new track.
 
yea, i went up to nelson yesterday to talk to some of the shop dudes, and one of em rides the pontoons and said the same thing about the pros overweighing the cons... he said his friend uses the hellbents and say they're a bit better then the pontoons.

right now i'm looking closest at next years jp vs. juliens... apparently they are rockered at the nose and tail, but they also have the normal bend underfoot, and they arn't as wide at the pontoons (a little too wide for me i think)...
 
well i toured on pontoons a few weeks ago and it was like hell compared to my usually touring skis

first some info: i tele 100% of the time and decided to rent a pair of pontoons with black diamond 01 bindings on them with black diamond skins. i also rode hellbents once too but didn't tour on em. but besides the point touring on rocker skis is horrible in my opinion you only have enough surface area. the surface that hits the snow on 169 pontoons is equal to like a 140 ski or so therefore you dont get much glide at all which equal slower tour time. as for the trekkers i dont know much about them but ive herd they suck. but i would test out some different bindings to get exactly what you want for example torsionally stiff and so on.

but if i were you i would recommend getting a different ski even if its not twin tip because many non-twin tips are good touring skis just because of the skin attachment and usually twin tips are heavier. but there are many good solution for me the g3 el hombre is good as well as the g3 reverend and the black diamond verdict. so i would test and then decide
 
They'd be kick ass for breaking trail and skiing down, and that's about it. I can only imagine trying to traverse wind buff or ice on rockered skis and it makes me cringe. Keep in mind there's going to be several drawbacks to it and only one positive, so you'd better be willing to really suffer for a couple quick runs each day.
 
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