Long winter month and Nansen's Book (1891) convinced Mathias Zdarsky to obtain a pair of skis from Norway. The skis were equipped with for its time common Nordic bindings without any lateral stability. He found out immediately that this type of equipment is designed for long walks across flat snowfields or rolling hills. For the use in steep alpine areas, Zdarsky's home, the binding did not provide the necessary stability to utilize the skis for sliding downhill. After countless trials he came up with a design of a metal frame binding to optimize the control from boot to ski. The binding was named after him and the town he was from, Zdarsky or Lilienfelder Binding. This type of binding still had a free heel like the original from the Telemark, so if a skier fell down it eliminated some serious injuries known later from the invention of the Kandahar binding types in 1930 with locked down heels.

Today we see the Austrian town of Lilienfeld as the birthplace of the new Alpine Skiing Technique. It's most popular form in the public, a race competition through gates was one of Mathias Zdarsky's ideas. He organized the first type of giant slalom in March 19, 1905.

The roll Mathias Zdarsky had as entrepreneur for modern alpine skiing technique became even more obvious, when skiers considered the employment of the new Norwegian-Semen Double Pole technique versus the traditional single pole the Lurk.

Zdarsky's invention of the rigid and torsional stiffer binding, the Lilienfelder Binding, experienced even more development later in his life when skier experimented with locked down heels and custom made leather ski boots versus common mountaineering boots used for skiing.

Cable Bindings · Kandahar Bindings · Releasable Bindings

Skiing became very popular in the regions of the Alps. Different styles of skiing evolved over times and different technical needs became necessary for a binding. In 1930 a binding type called Kandahar Binding was one of the most inovative inventions. This binding was complete manufactured from steel and had a cable and hooks to lock down the heel if necessary. With a lever in front of the toe piece, steel cables and cable hooks underneath the boot the skier was able to strap down the heel to the ski and gain more control over the ski. For example for Nordic ski jumping the binding was used with a limited travel of the heel. At the same time the binding was usable for the Telemark turn as well as for climbing up hills with skins and for the popular Alpine Skiing Technique employing parallel turns with locked down heels.

Kandahar bindings had no safety features and in the locked down mode they could cause serious injuries in ankle and knee. In 1952 ski binding designer Hannes Marker from the town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, presented a new releasable toe piece to replace the old toe bracket. His type of binding (duplex & simplex) was very simple compare to the modern safety bindings of today, but it helped tremendously to reduce injuries. The first types of releasable bindings could handle only lateral release caused by rotation. The frontal release feature (Marker 1956) was the next step towards today's safety bindings and safety standards. The Marker safety binding was designed only for the use in downhill skiing and had no climbing feature for the ski mountaineer.

The first safety bindings for backcountry skiers appeared around 1975. Isser and Vinersa bindings are one of the first safety bindings with unlimited (90 degree) heel travel. Both binding makers are incorporating the simple but very effective and reliable Marker Rotamat heel pice in their binding designs. Marker developed a modified Rotamat unit with just 3 inches of heel travel for his own model line for the occational backcountryskier with high safety in mind . Silvretta with it's 300 model from the 1970's remains still as one of the top AT binding makers on the market and the design of the latest model from 2002 (550) is very similar to it's older brother from the late 70's. The Swiss AT binding maker Fritschi revolutionized the AT binding market in the 1990's with it's Diamir and Freeride models. The bindings are known for their durability, safety features and even the wide range of use for in bound resort skiing and backcountryskiing with no limits.

The term Randoné is coming from the French language and it is just their word for Alpine Touring. French mountaineers demanded a special light weight ski in the 80's and one of the major ski manufacturer in Austria build a super light weight model with a hollow air chamber. The ski company named it's feather weight "RANDONÉ" and probably created a synonym for ski touring.

AT Binding manufactures over the past 30 years I know of: Ramer, USA; Tyrolia, Austria; Dynafit, Austria; Iser, Germany; Silvretta, Germany; Vinersa, Germany; Marker, Germany; Fritschi, Switzerland; Naxo, Switzerland;

I've seen some other AT bindings but they are very little companies and only local available. Some of the above mentioned companies are not in business any more or no longer manufacture AT bindings.