Telemark Tech System

So you ski with the toe in the fully unlocked position?

Yup -- the toe's locked up for skinning, obviously, but unlocked for skiing. I was pretty skeptical that the toe would hold the boot in place with the strong forward pressure from the heel throw, especially with the heel lifted, but it doesn't budge. Has excellent torsional stiffness too.

Anyone try it with F3's? They're quite a bit lighter . . . no "T" in the nomenclature, though . . .

I think Mark mentioned that he's had some folks trying it with F3s and that it worked fine, though maybe I'm mixing some conversations together. The TX aren't light, that's for sure -- I think lighter weight boots are still the biggest gap in tele, having held a pair of TLT5s...

The boots I have (Scarpa TX) would do fine for anything you'd be able to do with a ski boot -- I've climbed easy 5th and super-easy ice in my T2s and the TX are far superior for that kind of thing. 

You just described my current boot and some of the terrain I'm speaking of, thanks.

As far as the weight, it's a pretty heavy boot eh'? That's the other crux, when I held Silas' TLT5 last June I thought the damn thing was going to fly out of my hand! A climbable and skiable boot that feels as light as a XC low-top!

Even with the TTS, I'll still have to watch from the shadows as there's no way I have the coin to make that happen before next spring's alpine climbing season. Maybe I'll have to get my amigo tele.skier into his mad-science binding lab .

I swear I'm not just squatting on this thread... but I do love talking gear.

Yeah, it's a heavy boot. It's a couple of ounces heavier than my T2s. It's really comfortable though, for what that's worth, with power more akin to my T1s, so you're getting more out of the boot.

It's a bag of cement next to the TLT5 though.

It may not help you, but Mark/Wasatch has been selling a conversion kit which includes everything except the Dynafit toepiece -- that's the route I took, since I had a spare pair of toes kicking around.