Lucania: Making our Skis

When travelling on heavily glaciated terrain, loaded with heavy sleds, and there are only two of us on the rope, avoiding a crevasse fall is critical. In order to facilitate travel in deep snow and to better span the crevasses, we made custom skis. At 85.5” (220cm) long and 5” wide (127mm), these boards are sure keep us above ground :)

We fabricated our skis from yellow birch – harvested from our property in northern Minnesota. By meshing traditional northern craft with modern finishes such as telemark bindings, climbing skins and mountaineering boots we have a ski tailored to our application.

Check out this cool video on the making of our custom skis!