Touring

I have been looking into getting a pair of fat skis for use in scotland and have considered doing some light "touring" in them- basically to get me out of the corries up north and to get to a few of the decent rusn off the back of cairngorm, nothign more than an hour.

Been looking at getting something reasonably cheap because my skis are in storage in Italy.

What are the opinions between Dukes and Baron bindings? And how do you fit skins to skis? Do you leave a gap at teh edges for traversing?
How does it work with alpine boots?

Cheers!!

Rossyhead....

Dukes and Barons will both take alpine soled boots, or Vibram soled touring boots. Dukes are heavy, Barons a bit lighter. I do know that to go to walk mode on Dukes, you need to step out of the binding, not sure about the Barons. Dukes seem to need a high minimum DIN value to work properly, this might be an issue if touring not freeriding.
Skins get glued on to the bases, with a hook at the tips, and usually one at the tails (not always) and yes, you do leave a gap for the edges for traversing. Cutting a pair of skins to fit tests the nerves! I measured 3x before cutting!

Alpine boots are not hugely comfy to wear for ascent, either have them a bit loose at the ankle and risk blisters, or put up with little ankle movement, as there is no walk mode.

hmmm ok thanks, im just torn between getting a cheapish pair of phat skis for offpiste here in scotland-various differnet pairs on ebay for around 100quid or paying a bit more, getting a pair of "black crows" with the baron bindings and being able to use them for skinning up-scotland is looking like as good as last year!