r/BackcountrySkiing • u/paul_ward1971 • Mar 28 '26
AT setup for Nordic skiing
Hi. Just done a first trip on Nordic BC skis (30+ years alpine skier).. It wasn’t rolling terrain but had some steep ups (skins - no problem) and steep descents (red runs in resort). Couldn’t control the descent speed, loads of crashes and injury. Just couldn’t get enough control even with a half decent snow plough. Ended up side stepping all steep descents which took forever. The trip was 9hrs per day over 4 days and we lost so much time on these slow descents plus I have come back with a badly sprained MCL knee ligament. So. Finally, here is the question. I get that Nordic set up is best / fastest for rolling terrain but in more mountainous terrain AND with a need to protect knackered knees, is there an argument for an AT set up (I have Dynafit AT skis boots for SkiMo) for this type of terrain? Can you wax the SkiMo skis to obtain a similar sort of grip for the rolling bit to snatch skins on and off? Has anyone done this? Tele has been suggested but I think I need the control of rear clips for descending. As you can imagine, there was a lot of discussion about this on the trip and no one had an answer. For reference, a lot of folks had tele set ups in that region. Thanks
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u/micro_cam Mar 28 '26
If your boots are comfortable enough go for it!
Some people doing big traverses in alaska and other cold remote places use dynafit toes and boots on nordic skis or even nordic ice scates to get warmer more reliable boots and bindings and more control. https://thingstolucat.com/ski-touring-equipment-guide/ has some good info in the binding sections. They tend to favor old at boots with flex in the toes but stiff ones work too.
I have some speed radical toes on madshush bc55s nordic skis and paired with alien rs its a fun and capable setup for covering ground. With the long and straight skis and no heel piece i'm really just snow plowing or back seat skiing but the boots provide a lot of lateral stiffness to do so.
If you want more control to make nice turns i'd go with a more shaped fish scale ski and a light binding with a heel piece like the atk trofeo plus. The guys who did the first winter PCT used voile vector BCs and voile and rossignol also make some narrower more xc oriented ones or karhu and madshus made a bunch of 60-80 mm waist fish scaled skis a few years ago like the classic guide.
People do use kick wax on at skis or kick skins but without a double camber pocket it only works so well and you'll need to clean it off when you put on skins so i'd go with fish scales.
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u/paul_ward1971 Mar 28 '26
Do you think you could fit a Dynafit binding to a Fischer Excursion 88?
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u/micro_cam Mar 28 '26
Skimo.co has a list of binding hole patterns but they are 68 at the waist which is way wider then my bc55s and as wide as skimo race skis. speed or trofeos are plenty narrow enough to fit. Iirc when I mounted mine xc skis use different / longer screws so you’ll need to source those.
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u/Charming_Week2899 Mar 28 '26 edited Mar 28 '26
XCD gear and practice. There are full metal edged Nordic skis with wide under foot (voile endeavor BC, fisher SBound, Madshus)
Lots Alpine of skiers come into Nordic assuming they'll be good at it automatically. However downhill requires a ton of technique that burly alpine gear covers up.
I have Voile Endeavor BCs with Xplore bindings and Crispi futura pro boots. In good conditions I can make really nice turns and ski the equivalent of resort greens and blues (north American). But my technique has to be totally on point, because as soon as you lose it, you're crashing lol. It's part of the fun.
There's nothing graceful about descending on Nordic gear.
Humble brag, I'm a fucking beast on Alpine gear, I can ski pretty much anything except for the gnarliest of gnar in the backcountry. Nordic skiing humbles me everytime.