Skiing in your ice climbing boots

This last ski season I used a product from a European company called Alp Control they make a tibia support device they call the "Mountain Spring". This device supports your foot ankle and lower leg and just straps on over your boots. This allows you to skin and climbing in your climbing boots but have a safe and fun ski down. The Mountain Spring is somewhere around 1.5 - 2 pounds and made out of carbon fiber and titanium parts.

Ideal uses for this would be climbing to the summit up a moderate climb with your skis on your back and skiing down. Or skiing into an ice climb and skiing out. Or stashing your skis and supports on the summit during acclimatization and climbing a hard technical route topping out and having a fast and fun ski down.

Down side: Rolling terrain, this setup is not good for laps, simply because strapping the tibia support on is time consuming. Which really, that is not the intended use. The buckles need further development for efficiency. They are not ergonomic and add to the time to attach it to the boot. The price is the true downfall. I think I spent five or six hundred dollars on my pair. Being carbon fiber and titanium there is no surprise at a big price tag.
I was very happy with the performance of this device. I would highly recommend this product to anyone looking to ski in their mountaineering boots. I have skied with a knee straps setup in the past. They did significantly improve the downhill ski but are of no comparison to this Mountain Spring device.

I recently (June 2012) did a trip to Portland and climbed Liberty ridge on Rainier and skied down the Emmons glacier using this, all in a single car to car push. Later that week I soloed the North Face route on Mt. Hood and skied down the Coopers Spur and back to my car once again using this device. If you would like to see here is the video for Rainier: youtube.com/watch?v=-AiFJnZ… and a better video from my solo of Hood youtube.com/watch?v=gTM9H3e….

For mountain and ice routes this fills a niche nothing else has. Other than some minor nuisances in buckle design I cannot recommend these enough. They make skiing out tremendously more safe and even fun. Here is the web site: blackpowder-ski.com/mountai…

Wow nice video man! Makes me want to do the route!

Couple questions, how did the skiability (is that a word?) compare to a lightweight pair of Dynafit boots?

I wonder what the weight difference is between: Silvretta 500 (I assume this is the binding you used?) + Bahruntse (Looks like your boot?) + Mountain Spring vs. Dynafit binding + TLT 5 boots?

I've heard a lot about people climbing and skiing in the Dynafit TLT 5 boots, but never heard of the Mountain Spring. Thanks for sharing!

The Silvreta 550 is kind of heavy. You would save weight with the Dynafit TLT preformance or mountain boot and one of thier ultra light race bindings. Eventually when La Sportiva wizes up and makes a Dynafit style binding in thier ice and super warm mountain boots that will save maybe a pound on foot.

You could totally climb a route like this (Hood NF) in ski boots with out a problem. And a real ski boot like the TLTs will allways out-preform a soft boot setup like this going down. But for more technical routes this setup is even more appropriate.

I ski and climb water ice in my dyanfit tlt 5's and absolutely love them. FYI

Nice idea but at the price I will probably continue to strap my scarpa ski boot tongue to my ice boots for the decent. Thanks for posting.

You could totally climb a itinerary equal this in ski boots with out a job. And a factual ski blow equivalent the TLTs leave allways out-preform a spirant revive equipment equal this deed behind. But for solon theoretical routes this setup is steady author pat.

Taylor152 wrote:You could totally climb a itinerary equal this in ski boots with out a job. And a factual ski blow equivalent the TLTs leave allways out-preform a spirant revive equipment equal this deed behind. But for solon theoretical routes this setup is steady author pat.

A friend of mine used to make removable cuffs out of the top parts of old, used (free) alpine ski boots. He would remove the upper part of the ski boot (cuff and upper liner) then rivit them so they stayed together. They also had a piece of webbing that went under your ice climbing boot like the strap on a gaiter. So, you could skin up without the cuff then throw it on like a gaiter for the descent. They looked pretty effective.