Tölz Ski Bindings & Boots
 

One of my co-workers just got back from skiing in Utah last week. He asked me about Alpine Touring equipment. When I was at Bad Tölz in the early 80's we used Erbacher 185cm touring skis. For the life of me I can not recall the bindings or boots we used.

Anyone remember what bindings & boots we used at Tölz? Thanks!

Vinersa bindings and Hanwag boots...although, if you recall, we had the option of buying our own stuff...i had Blizzard Firebirds with Silveretta 300 bindings and Koflach Vallugas...

actually, we had the Marker touring binding at first, then bought the Vinersa binding around 1982 when i took A-123 from you...but my personal skis that i used for weekend touring had the Silveretta/Blizzard setup...

At Devens in 73, we had Marker bindings, chipps, and 210 cm White Star skis for both downhill and x-country. Ugh!

In the 80's at Devens - Ramer multipurpose skis with the Ramer/Marker cable loop multipurpose bindings - and Hanwegs, Chips, or brown Goretex boots - with the light green gaiters. And the traverse skins, who the hell came up with those things, huh? They'd slide all over the place, I thought that's what the fishscales on the bottom of the Ramer's was designed for, and a little wax that matched the conditions......

Ah!!!! Marker! Thanks LK! There was always a debate on 123 as to which bindings we should buy. Stew wanted one brand, Tiny another, I was just happy not getting killed on the downhill runs! :rolleyes:

Tiny was gone when the decision was made...hell, you were the S4 then, IIRC...Battalion went with the Vinersa as the replacement to the Marker system as they were more adaptable for conversion to a rescue sled...when used with the Vinersa avalanche rescue shovel (one of which i still have), it was a turn-key solution...the fact that the bindings were...less than perfect didn't seem to matter much to the folks who made the decision...Jerry and i tended to like the Silveretta as a replacment as they were simpler to fix and operate...

anything was better than Marker's more-downhill-than-touring approach...

Hipshot, what a memory. I could not recall the names at all. We sure spent a lot of time on those creatures. If you could ski on them, you could ski on civilian skis great.

Yes, nobody liked the Marker bindings. Everyone had their own opinon on what to get to replace them. I think that the funds were allocated in FY83 to replace the bindings for the entire Bn, the mountian teams may have gotten them sooner.

I too still have my Vinersa shovel. The neat thing about it was it has a gage in the handle so you can do a snow profile and it could function as an emergency sled..

cross country/down hill
 

We called them nato bindings and used chippewa boots, also there was a cloth skin that could be attached to the short ski's to help climb. No one that I knew did much more than try them once. Second day at Flint we had a ski march....two groups coming towards each other going to the others start point...money was waged..night spent on the floor of a guest house...good beer ( radler ?) Great esprit de corps.

a radler is a mixture of beer and limonade, if memory serves me...

radler
 

Yes, that's it...very thirst quenching!

I recall seeing some of the old skis when I got to Toelz. Wood, painted white about 200cm with a hole in the tip and screw in metal edges with Kandahar bindings. They called them Army White Stars. The mountain boots, made in Toelz, were used with them. Telescoping poles were used with big baskets. I had my own stuff for recreation. Kastle 210 GS skiis, Marker bindings and Koftlach boots. The Radlers were great specially after a hard day.

Erbacher Ski Stuff
 

Folks,

I've still got a pair with bindings attached up in my garage. We used them on the Rallye Para Neige in Sondhofen in '74.

Little spring loaded screw on the bottom just under the binding area who's head would slip into a metal plate on the eel skin climbers which enabled us to walk _up_ many a ski-slope under the lifts all winter one year.

I've got some other things we used then also, not in the normal supply chain.

Joe Hannon

We went from the 215cm White Star skis with cable bindings and Chippewa boots :lifter to the Marker touring bindings and Hanwag boots circa '76. The Marker bindings (with their spring release), Hanwag boots, and 195cm (IIRC) Atomic skis were a BIG improvement...like finally getting power steering for your old Mack truck. :) We still used the sealskin climbers.

Richard :munchin