How to build homemade Cross Country Skis with Snowshoe bindings so you can use your own boots

[ebinmaine 68,370]

As many of you already know my Honey and I  will do almost anything to get out from underneath a roof.
We want to try cross-country skiing here on the acreage.
My Honey bought skis for both of us at Goodwill and began hunting online for boots, new and used.
We found that the price, for what you got, was a bit higher than we wanted to put into it for something neither one of us had tried in three decades or so. Also, Cross Country boots are not known for being very warm and our Mountain terrain here is variable enough that we would need to remove the skis at times and we wanted to be able to walk short distances then reattach and continue.

During her online searching she discovered that someone in the distant past had disassembled snowshoes and used the bindings from them along with a gate hinge to build their own Cross Country Skis into which they could attach a warm comfortable winter boot.
It was surprisingly easy to do involving hand tools and a drill.
This short video shows the first trial of the skis she built for herself.
The surface she is on has a very light dusting of fresh snow you can see falling on top of slick glare ice which is not ideal conditions but they should work quite well on regular snow. 

 

 

 

I've tried to put the pictures below into the basic order of how we did this.

It's very simple and if you'd like to try it please feel free to comment and ask questions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[The Tuul Crib 7,337]

That's really cool Eric ! This type of motion in the wet slippery is so effortless and very peaceful. I'm so impressed!!

[ebinmaine 68,370]

1 minute ago, The Tool Crib said:

That's really cool Eric ! This type of motion in the wet slippery is so effortless and very peaceful. I'm so impressed!!

Trina says... Thanks!

[briankd 817]

i may have to give that a try i have a set of downhill skies i used to ski yrs ago boots and all been 20 yrs since i been on them may as well get sum kinda use outa them  thanks eric

[squonk 41,344]

[LengerichKA88 1,883]

2 hours ago, squonk said:

Poor Charlie Brown.... that would be a good visualization of what it’s like to talk to toddlers too 😂

 

i didnt realize that cross country skis were so skinny, but that’s a neat and innovative way to make them work the way you need. Should have fresh powder between us now, if you wanna slide by 

[ebinmaine 68,370]

20 minutes ago, KyleLengerich said:

 😂

i didnt realize that cross country skis were so skinny, but that’s a neat and innovative way to make them work the way you need. Should have fresh powder between us now, if you wanna slide by 

I couldn't get any pictures or video because we both were trying them out but we did head outside for a few minutes and attempt not to fall down while using them.

We actually did pretty well!

seems like there would be a pretty decent sized learning curve for somebody of my stature and lack of balance but I can see me spending more time on them.

Trina of course adapted to them right away.

One thing I did notice almost immediately which is a huge help is that they hold me up out of the snow better than snowshoes do. I have a very large set of snowshoes that is almost properly sized for me and even with those I sink quite a bit into fresh snow.