Time to split…Atomic Poacher style

So on Monday Santa Claus (aka Eric) delivered a very big and nice Christmas present to me. I was anxiously awaiting the Fed Ex delivery all day Monday. When the Atomic Poacher arrived, I checked it out and had to wait until the evening to play with it and start putting it together.

For those not familiar with a splitboard, it offers up skiing and snowboarding with the same equipment. For backcountry access, you are able to ski and hike uphill on the skis and then for the best backcountry riding…you can connect it to snowboard down. You addskins to the bottom of the skis and they give you traction when climbing uphill.

Last year I had the chance to splitboard on Buffalo Pass just outside of Steamboat Springs with my more knowledgable splitboard friend Gary and it was definitely something I could do. I used to ski so I didn’t find skinning up that bad and definitely offered up a way to enjoy some powder stashes farther out.

At SIA in January, Atomic brought out their new splitboard the Poacher. The Poacher offers up a new interfacing system for splitboards since before this was just Voile. Burton tried to have their own interface system but it infringed on the Voile system and was discontinued.

So Monday night I sat down to get familiar with my new splitboard. Armed with a direction book and all the gear needed, I worked on getting the bindings angles set up for my riding style and then mounting the bindings.

Then I removed the bindings and split the board so it became skis. Then I could mount the bindings so I am very to skin with them.

Here’s a view of the bindings mounted and the risers in the heel to make climbing easier on steeper pitches.

I started to put together the split at 11pm at night, managed to play around with it and get through the directions of setting it up each way. I didn’t see it as too difficult once I got familiar with the parts and the system. Using the crampons to turn and un-clip pieces wasn’t difficult. And I felt better about setting it up for skinning or riding. I really can’t wait to take it on snow and become more familiar with it and let my other splitboarding friends try it out as well.

Here are pictures from Atomic’s website that show the Poacher and Technology

So needless to say…I am working on being more prepared for backcountry this season. I am planning to attend a Friends of Berthoud Pass Backcountry Awareness class for the early season and on-snow sessions later in the year so I am more prepared for the backcountry. Gary, my more knowledgeable splitboard friend is planning to take me out more often in the backcountry and help me get more educated on backcountry awareness making it safer for me and people I am with. I still have to get a couple more items to be ready. A shovel, probe and beacon are on the list as well as poles for climbing with.

We’ll see how the year goes as I make my way into backcountry more, offering up fresh powder stashes outside of the resorts. After I get enough time on it…I’ll put up a review as well.