Prof. John Seifert of Montana State University first popped up on my radar when I saw a video of a lecture he gave to the PSIA National Academy in 2019. That year, I published what I could glean from his presentation in a Revelation titled, Why Wide Skis Aren’t Good for Your Knees. Prof. Seifert went on sabbatical at the end of that school year and we drifted out of touch. We recently reconnected and I’m glad to say we picked right up where we had left off.

We’ll pick up the thread of Prof. Seifert’s thesis in today’s podcast, along with a deep dive into the field Dr. Seifert first explored on the aforementioned sabbatical, namely the equipment used in mountaineering and its latest incarnation, skimo. If you haven’t heard what’s going on in this newly minted Olympic sport, suffice it to say it is an extreme form of alpine competition that I think will intrigue and fascinate those of us who merely ski downhill.