It was about a week after my birthday and a week before Christmas. Snow was on the ground and it was around the time you might find me hundreds of miles away snowboarding in some distant mountains like I do every year but this year two sets of skis were on their way to my front door. One for myself and another for my brother, to compliment the skis we’d gotten for his kids a few weeks earlier.
Why Skis?
I love everything about snowboarding but snowboards go downhill not up. Skis on the other hand give you some options for that up part.
Here in North Dakota we aren’t blessed with a whole lot of vertical, most of it having been an ancient seabed before being ground flat by enormous sheets of ice for thousands of years. This means the few ski resorts we have are small and hardly worth the drive. Still, the Missouri River and it’s tributaries managed to cut some beautiful breaks in the years since the glacial melt water first started carving them. It’s in these breaks where my great-great-grandfather homesteaded in 1906 and where I live today.
Which skis?
It’s dry here, and the only place you’ll find trees is in and around those carved out draws, where moisture gathers and springs form. Grass and brush fill in the rest.
It’s also cold here in the winter, really cold. Every winter has it’s own attitude but you can usually count of there being snow on the ground from fall to spring. Unfortunately it’s also relatively dry and very windy here. Snowfall can be sporadic, with a lot of drifting on the rolling treeless prairie in between. Essentially this means the snow has a good chance of being in poor condition with patches of grass and brush sticking through. Still, it’s snow and it’s here. I thought with the right skis, I could enjoy that snow even more.
With that in mind I searched for the best skis to meet my needs and settle on Altai Hoks. Which many call a ‘skishoe’, a cross between a ski and a snowshoe. They’re short for easy navigating, but wide for flotation. Best of all they have bindings similar to snowshoes allowing you to strap in just about any boot or shoe. This way you only need to pack the skis without worrying about the boots.