In the late 1970s, I became aware of this setup, as it was the standard issue binding for winter Colorado Outward Bound courses. The caveat was, that we could not use the lockdown mechanism - insurance only covered nordic skiing - and so we removed that portion of the bindings on our students skis. After teaching those courses, I bought myself a pair, and mounted them on an old pair of my dad’s Rossi Stratos. It was the perfect setup for approaching ice climbs, as it worked well with climbing boots, and was a heck of a lot faster than snowshoes.