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Brand new! – well at least for me. I put some NNN-BC bindings on my snowshoes and can just step-in. And out. The picture is just my experimental prototype, using what I had in the garage. I’m hoping to try it with better materials and maybe on another pair of snowshoes soon.
But I did use them on the Connector Trail and they worked well. I now have a vision of smaller, lightweight snowshoes (and no 3/4 inch plywood) and skate ski boots. And skiing down White Salmon with my skate skis, then carrying those light skis on my pack!
The trick is: leave the little rubber bumper at the toe of the ski boot off the binding. That leaves the boot to pivot freely on the binding, making it appropriate to fasten the binding with a rigid attachment to the snowshoe. Want to talk about this? Contact Pete Tryon.
Update: spring, 2025, a couple of years later. I still like this. I did set up a smaller pair of snowshoes with regular NNN bindings (see picture below). They are now my standard pair. Note that I had a pair of bindings on an old pair of skis and just cut the middle out of the skis and screwed it onto a metal plate on the snowshoe. On this pair, I put a scrap piece of metal across the frame, but on another pair of snowshoes where the straps holding the original binding plate were still solid, I just attached to that plate with no changes. With the front of the binding wedged on the snowshoe and the back screwed through the heel plate of the snowshoe, the binding is held rigidly in place. All of the flex / pivot takes place between the boot and the binding. I did take the rubber bumper at the toe of the boot out, although I don’t think it makes much difference. I tried to place the binding so the ball of the foot was in the same place as with the old bindings, but the placement was actually defined by the front of the binding just barely fitting into the snowshoe. I through-bolted with lock nuts the ski pieces through the plates, letting the ends of the bolts stick down – they just add another bit of traction to the metal cleats already there.
Happy trails!
