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Oh boy, is it cold today or what?! 12F in the morning! If somebody ever tells you that Swix F4 is a universal wax, punch them in the face and call them a liar. Big mistake on my part. Plenty of people today, but all are in the lodge and on green slopes. Zero wait at blue and black lifts. Bad ticketing lines, both inside and outside. Snow is awesome. My daughter says best conditions of the season, and that has got to mean something! No ice anywhere, hard base with packed fine powder on top. Great traction. Today any ski will ski well. Just don't use F4 on them.

Pffft. Wednesday morning.

Kinda long and wide still. But we've been through that already. What I'm wondering is how did you buy them? They aren't demoed anywhere and new pair costs a fortune. So it's got to be based on some faith and reviews alone?

Wow. Extreme in every dimension... I thought MX88, they have red/brown tips.

Did you ski them or not? Doug's saying you did, you say you didn't even get to rip on them... But sounds like your dilemma's been solved? A pair of Kastles for you?

Which Kastles exactly were they?

And so let me get it straight... The bindings disengaged in the middle of the run? Just like that? You didn't do bumps, didn't run into a cookie, were just skiing down, and then all of sudden the bindings open, brakes break? Wow. Puts that recent conversation of having bindings periodically tested into a new perspective.

How's it empty though? I check the webcams from time to time, and there seem to be plenty of people all over the place. Only now it's clearing out. I'm actually considering to abandon my night skiing plans at BM on Thursday and go to JF instead... Because there the eastern side is literally empty. Not a soul.

No, I'll most probably be there Thursday night.

Whaaat? After all the advice you run out to some shady shop?? Buy local. Buy from the forum vendors

Are you sure he didn't want you to man up and just do it? It is a ridiculous debate over nothing, esp. with rails.

Btw, don't mess around by leaving your expendive skis when this free ski check isn't open. I've seen one devastated fella at JF whose skis grew a pair of legs, and JF management couldn't really do anything besides calling him dumb for not using the ski check that was open at that time.

I expect he will. Once he gets the skis and falls in love with them. The reason for waxing is both to move faster in wet snow and to protect the bases from dirt and abrasion in hard and cold conditions. Plus it's a crime not to wax sintered bases.

I love it. No skis in sight, and we're almost arguing over who gets to wax them first. Oh, btw, you WILL wax them yourself, right?!

Well, I'm surprised that with your obsessive overanalysing of everything you haven't actually watched it yet. Scary stuff... Happens on a lift of an Eastern mountain near you. Allegedly That will put your worries over bindings into the right perspective!

It's a different Frozen. The one where they all die on the lift or below it

Some integrated bindings are actually cool, at least if you believe marketing. The way how they're mounted on the ski itself allows the ski to flex better underneath the boot. Check out railflex. But if you don't carve, the benefit is lost.

Oh, brother. That's it. I'm off to watch Frozen 2010 now, it will correlate nicely with today's broken lifts. And you do the combined risk analysis of the hobby meanwhile.

Fine. Let's buy those skis first. Maybe then you'll see how it all fits and will reconsider. For you're being somewhat irrational here.

On what skis exactly did he have them mounted? Did that require drilling and a research of a drill pattern? Then probably he just chose to let others do it for him, to be safe and to save time. But if the bindings are integrated, it's just the matter of sliding the two parts on the rail and positioning them according to your BSL. The DIN settings you can get from the chart based on your weight and skiing abilities. They're an approximation anyway. Then turn those DIN screws with a screwdriver, be done and throw a party with the unspent cash.

This is gonna be waste of money. New skis, new bindings... Just use the DIN chart. To graduate from beginners skis you need to mount your own bindings. Especially if they're integrated.

Poor Salty. First new season pass, now this... You all like spending the guy's money

RTMs have integrated bindings. Nothing to mount or pay extra for.

Atomic Redster SL. These rock when the surface is hard and smooth. In deeper snow they're OK, but nothing spectacular. On rough hard snow like frozen slush they act like a mad horse, I have to absorb every single bump with my legs.

It doesn't matter. I'm on good skis for hardpack and ice. But they lose their attractiveness in slush and deeper snow, so I kinda look around. Lazily.