Coffee Table Book of: Ski Mountaineering (Paperback)

Coffee Table Book of: Ski Mountaineering is a large format book of ski mountaineering, printed edge to edge in colour, one picture to a page and the widest carried across two: race skis and climbing skins, boots, poles and crampons, couloirs, cols and glaciers, huts and lone summits, the kit being made and cared for, the old gear of the early days, and a few skiers seen far off in plain dark clothing.

The kit is laid out plain on the snow: a pair of race skis seen from above and a single ski with its skin stuck on, a light boot with one lever at the cuff, long poles with foam below the grips, a helmet, an ice axe, a crampon, a skin folded glue to glue, a slim race pack, a one piece race suit, a headlamp at dusk, a coil of rope, a bundle of bamboo wands, and a shovel and probe standing upright on an open slope.

The making follows a ski core of light wooden strips, planks drying under a shed, a roll of mohair plush and a roll of carbon cloth, then the care of trimming a skin with a small hooked blade, rubbing wax into the plush, ironing glide wax onto the base and filing the steel edges. The past runs from skins of seal fur and a tall wooden staff with an iron spike to nailed leather boots, a coil of hemp rope, a canvas rucksack, old iron crampons with leather straps, cable bindings, white painted skis, steel edges screwed on in short pieces and an ice axe with a wooden shaft.

Short notes run through the book, on the kit and how it is made and cared for, the snow, ice and weather of the high mountains, and the races, training and history of the sport: a skin track zigzags up a steep slope, turning at each corner with a step called a kick turn, on race boots, one lever frees the cuff to swing for climbing and locks it stiff for the descent, race packs hold the skis in loops and straps that can be reached without taking the pack off, and wax rubbed into the plush stops wet snow from sticking to the skin and balling up.

Printed in full colour on heavy 150gsm coated paper at 216 x 279 mm (8.5 x 11 inches), as a paperback.

Publisher - Cedar Pine Editions

Language - English

Perfect Bound

Contributors

By author

Dimitri Smith

Published Date - 2026-10-20

ISBN - 9671456001685

Dimensions - 27.9 x 21.6 x 0.7 cm

Page Count - 102