Bedrock & Paradox

I dream of a hard and brutal mysticism in which the naked self merges with a non-human world and yet somehow survives still intact, individual, separate. Paradox and bedrock.

Another fast shoe

The Altai skis Hok, available this fall.  Comes in 125cm and 145 cm lengths, looks to have a nice early rise tip, minimal sidecut, and a waist around 120cm.  Metal edges, and an inset skin underfoot.

I’m skeptical of the perma-skin, but everything else looks good.  Of course the golden question is how much do they weigh?  A total under 3 lbs a ski would make them a viable, and potentially extremely useful, tool for multiday wilderness travel.  I’m intrigued enough that I’m trying to get my paws on a pair ASAP.

The ski will come with inserts for standard three pin bindings (good choice), and the company is also importing and selling the X-Trace universal binding, which up til now was only available in North America (as far as I know) via Hagan and their X-Trace XC ski.  Again, it looks like it should be a functional design, too bad according to the website they weigh (only! ack!) 950 grams a pair.

DaveC

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4 responses to “Another fast shoe”

  1. Nils Larsen Avatar
    Nils Larsen

    saw your ping come in this AM, thanks for your interest. We do not have specs up on the website yet but I can give you some basics based on our preproduction run of the 125cm Hok.

    width under foot is 110mm

    weight per ski (without binding) is approx. 2lbs 5 oz. Variations with this due to variations in wood but should be quite close to this. There is both early taper and early rise to the ski – something we feel is ideal for backcountry skis. Mounting position is forward (for a number of reasons) and in our testing this has been effective use of a short platform.

    As to skin durability, we have a number of the original skis like this that we worked on at Karhu over 10 years ago and the skin is in quite good condition, definitely more durable then a nowax (mechanical) base

    hope this answers some of your questions, feel free to email me if you have any others.

    cheers nils

    Reply
  2. DaveC Avatar
    DaveC

    Nils, thanks so much for coming on over and sharing some exciting news. That weight is very, very, very good news. As regular readers here know, I’ve been skiing (and more recently beta testing) Marquette BC skis this winter. Problem is that their weight holds them back from a lot of applications to which they’d otherwise be well suited. (Lack of metal edges, too.)

    As for the early rise and taper and the forward mount, all check out very well in my experience. Should be a great tool for wilderness travel, and I’d love to use them to cross the Bob next month!

    Reply
  3. Nils Larsen Avatar
    Nils Larsen

    Hi Dave
    email about what you are interested in doing, perhaps we can work something out

    nils

    Reply
  4. Ross Bleakney Avatar
    Ross Bleakney

    These skis look very good indeed. Like you, Dave, I would prefer a waxless base over a permanent skin. My ideal would be a waxless base, combined with hooks so that applying a skin would be especially easy.

    But that may be just a quibble. I really like the design. The weight is great, especially for a metal edge ski. The length sounds outstanding as well. I especially appreciate the fact that you can get it with a universal binding. My biggest concern is that I have to wait a full year before I can use these. I really want something like this in the Spring, when I spend part of my day hiking on dirt, and the other part on snow.

    Reply

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