The Conversion.

Over the weekend I had little time to get to my backcountry ski conversion but was able to squeeze in a little. The idea of the project is to create backcountry skis, as cheap as possible, to avoid ski hill prices, avoid growing crowds and enjoy the backcountry while both hiking up and skiing down the mountain. My brand new alpine skis I received for Christmas will be used when I want to go to a ski hill.

This project is super cheap as the bindings are from my old alpine skis. The backcountry skis, Hagan touring skis, were given to me by a friend as they were a second pair not being used. I will have climbing skins that I can borrow from my brother in-law along with alpine trekkers.

My first step was to remove my old alpine bindings from my old school skis. Nothing difficult here until I meet a stripped screw that I didn’t particularly like. I finally got the screw out by directly drilling into the head of the screw with a drill bit. I continuously increased the size of the bit until the head of the screw snapped off. I took off the binding and believe I already have someone who wants my old skis as when he saw them last night in my stairway said "these would work great for my Muskoka chair." Obviously he makes Muskoka chairs out of old skis, whatever floats your boat I suppose.

That was all the time I had to apply to the project. Next I will have to prepare the skis and bindings for proper alignment before mounting. Since the snow will be gone before I have my helmet I doubt I will have the ability to use them at the end of this season so I have a lot of time to install them.