The sport of alpine touring combines the aggression of resort skiing with the ability to hike out across the backcountry. More skiers are moving this way as the boot and bindings technologies advance to be more compatible and light weight. As a ski and boot technician the functionality and safety of these systems are not as well established as those made for resort alpine skiing. There is opportunity to make these binding systems stronger, lighter and safer.
The biggest safety concern with alpine skiing is the occurrence of major injuries caused by falling and the skis not releasing properly. A massive 50% of knee related ski injuries result in anterior cruciate ligament damage, also known as tearing your ACL. One quarter of all ACL related accidents on skis can be linked to rear weighted pressure where the heel cannot release.

This project aims to create a new lightweight but most importantly, safer binding that enables the skier to tour and transition to an aggressive downhill stance with the safety of releasing in more angles than current systems. The project takes advantage of titanium additive manufacture for its lightweight, strong and temperature resilient qualities.