PIPESTONE RIVER- back on one ski
Trip date: Saturday Nov 19, 2022
Submitted by DEMOCRATIZE AB
Particpants:
Mr. Real Democracy skiing on one ski due to a Rottefella ski binding break
Discussion:
The Pipestone Blue 20 trail up to the Pipestone River horse/backpacker trail is double snowmobile packed and in fairly good to very good condition with nice mid winter snow.
The bottom 30 meters of the Blue 20 trail is in fair condition due to a little avoidable gravel chewed up by a truck that travel the trail or roadway. Once one gets by that, the trail is generally good with the exception of a 100 meter section further up the trail where there are about a dozen avoidable small rocks. Green Swix wax worked well for grip and glide. With another 7cm of new snow the trail could be trackset and provide very good skiing overall. It was fun fast skiing.
I was enjoying breaking easy trail up the Pipestone River trail, which had a nice dense layer above the ground with sweet silky dry snow on top to prance through, when I approached a fallen log. I went to side step over it and my ski fell off! I was unable to put it back on because the plastic plate broke directly under the toe pin area and I lost a few pieces. Talk about a ski buzz harshing Rottefella binding break! I have never broken a xc ski binding in my life (although I have torn bindings out of skis) which includes tens of thousands of kilometers of skiing. I was lucky it did not break up near the Camp Meadows which was my destination. I would never recommend automatic NNNBC Rottefella bindings to anyone as they are not durable. These bindings had under 7000k on them as compared to Rossignol manual bindings that I have with over 25,000k on- which have never had problems.
Skiing out on one ski was actually a fun challenge for the first few hundred meters until my right ski leg got tired. It was like a new sport. I had put my disabled ski on my pack and poled out like a regular XC skier. Going up hills in some cases was actually much faster with one foot on the Blue 20 trail. It took some figuring out on how to ski the packed trail but I managed and made it back to the car just as it was getting somewhat dark. I was lucky.