Welcome to Louis (Lou) Dawson's backcountry skiing information & opinion website. Lou's passion for the past 50 years has been alpinism, climbing, mountaineering and skiing -- along with all manner of outdoor recreation. He has authored numerous books and articles about
ski touring and is well known as the first person to ski down all 54 of Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks, otherwise known as the
Fourteeners! Books and free ski touring news and information here.
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Hey Lou-
I just “re-mounted” my Marker TR (or explode-o-tours as I call ’em) on my old MV2’s last year for my official vintage setup. It was a toss up between those and the old Silveretta’s & had to do a poll with the members of the MV2 club to see which would be more suitable. Mine have the M4 toes.
Nice boots you got there. What are they?
Later,
Tom
Hi there
I think I saw one of these at the recycling shop today (in a Fritschi box :-S). Are they worth anything as a history piece or whatever. I think the springs were red.
Hi Anton, they’re collectible and worth whatever you can get for them…
Tom, the boots are Nordic leather buckle, beautiful.
In the corner of my basement I have my old skiis.The bindings are marker with the m4 toe and the heel is I quess the rotax spring mounted on hart freestyle skiis. the stuff back in the day. Worth anything to anyone you suppose?
Several of us tried those Marker TR’s in the early 70’s, pro-patroling at Alyeska. As was said, they had very limited up motion in touring mode, but worse, we couldn’t keep them from breaking. The plastic yoke construction wasn’t up to the forces, and they soon broke near the ends of the wishbones. But they gave hope, since our boots at the time, Lange Comps, were totally unforgiving at the shin – so any easing of that pressure was welcome when climbing to do control work.
I also extensively skied those Silvretta cable bindings, mounted on a pair of 215 cm Bona touring skiis (all wood), which featured ‘lignite’ edges – some kind of exotic european hardwood substituting for steel edges. Yes, pine tar and waxed bases. But we toured the Maroon Bell wilderness and skied from Aspen to Crested Butte on them in March 1971. The cables regularly broke where the cable rode down over the ski edge when ‘clipped’ into for downhill mode. I finally broke the rigid wire bale that acts as a boot sole retainer. Wire, tape and cord were always in your touring pack, as you could depend on needing them. I think I was using a pair of Raichle Montagne climbing boots (single layer leather, vibram soles) with the Bona/Silvretta combination. It made downhill skiing with a multiday pack really interesting, especially when conditions were changing and your wax might be randomly gripping or gliding as you skied from sun to shade. Learning to stay balanced over the center of your ski was a critical skill – never 100% attainable!
Thanks for adding to the museum Gerry! I hope after a few years we have a bunch of stories like yours.
How did you get back from Crested Butte to Aspen?
I had a pair of these for several years in the mids 70s. I used them all over the place – skied at Bow Hut in the Rockies, Kokanee Glacier, and did the Spearhead Traverse at Whistler in them (before there was even a ski area on Blackcomb Mountain).
They were great. They had excellent release and were very reliable. They weren’t too heavy. The amount of heel lift wasn’t too much of a problem if you used them with old leather downhill ski boots (which were dirt cheap at thrift stores because downhill skiers were all switching to plastic boots.)
They were also a huge step up from the alternative of using a cable binding for the heel (in combination with a downhill toe piece). Using a cable meant taking the cable out of its back side lugs for touring and using a homemade touring plate that fitted behind the toe piece and kept your boot from falling out when walking. Needless to say that setup was a bit loose for edging etc and the Marker Rotomat gave far more control.
Everybody pretty much stopped using then when Iser Bindings came out.
John, great! Thanks for chiming in!
hey guys, great stories and info.
I found a guy selling these in AK and I was thinking of using them for approach/traverse but is there anyway that they would fit a koflax mountaineering boot? Pic doesn’t look like it; but maybe with some modifications?
I’ve still got a pair of these mounted on a pair of Fischer Futura Extremes (from the late 60’s). Our patrol leader from Mt. Washington found a box full of them in the dump so we put together some skis for out of bounds searches. they seem to work well for occasional use but I wouldn’t want to go too far on them