The man who got skiing out of a bind

If you've escaped from a fall with legs intact, it's Earl A Miller you have to thank. The inventor of the full heel-and-toe boot release, who died last year, made skiing much safer, say's Stephen Wood

Earl A Miller died on 24 June last year, at the age of 77. As far as I am aware, his passing was not noted in the UK; and in the US it was hardly reported except in newspapers published in Utah, where he spent much of his life. What little information there is about him on the internet is sandwiched between endless sites promoting the work of the "adult" photographer Earl Miller.

He was the director of the ski school in Snowbasin, just outside Salt Lake City, from the mid-Fifties until 1987, and he assembled a collection of wonderful photographs of the ski area, shot mainly in the Forties, which is now in the archives of the University of Utah.

But Miller was also an inventor. When he first skied, it was on barrel staves, to which his galoshes were attached with rubber bands. Later, the first ski bindings became available, but their release system – to detach the ski and prevent injury in a fall – operated only on the toe of the boot. So, in his small workshop, Miller developed a safer binding that also released at the heel. His workshop grew into the Miller Ski Company; and by the end of his life, he had registered at least 70 patents. Among the devices he made and marketed were two whose benefits have been felt by skiers all over the world.

In its obituary of Miller, the Salt Lake Tribune mentioned his pioneering Miller Soft, a "fat" ski developed for use on Utah's famous powder snow, and the releasable binding for snowboards – a device which has never caught on. But it was with reference to his greatest contributions to skiing technology that Miller's daughter, quoted in the obituary, said that he had made the sport safe. Before those two innovations, she said, "skiing wasn't something you should encourage your children to do".

When learning to ski, I studied closely the then-seminal book on the subject, We Learned to Ski, in the 1987 edition. In its illustrations, skiers had straps running around their boots which attached to their skis. Their purpose was, in the event of a fall in which a ski was released by its binding, to prevent it from hurtling down the slope and endangering other skiers. But on my first day on the Crystal Palace dry ski slope, I was not issued with ski straps – because one of Miller's inventions, the ski brake, had already displaced them. The familiar forked device, which automatically protrudes down into the snow when the binding is released, arresting its slide, was already widespread.

The fact that I did myself no harm on that disastrous day was also thanks largely to Miller. For he invented the step-in, multi-directional-release ski binding. Most earlier bindings had to be strapped on; and all of them would only release the ski in response to pressure from the boot acting to either side or straight upwards. Do beginners fall in such a neat and tidy way? No, they do not. And does any skier want to do more than just press down their boots and click them into the binding? No, they do not. It is Miller's legacy that made skiing both safer and more convenient.

Skiers make unreasonable demands on their bindings. The device's primary purpose is to attach skis to boots; their secondary purpose is to release skis from boots. In a fast, aggressive turn, the last thing a skier wants is for the pressure from the boots to release the skis. But the moment he or she falls, the binding's immediate response to pressure from a contorted limb or an out-of-shape ski should be a release.

When a binding functions poorly, most skiers figure that the device needs adjusting: the idea of loosening or tightening springs is, after all, easy to grasp. Harder to comprehend – and to evaluate – are the claims made by manufacturers for the superiority of their bindings over those from rival companies.

"Overall, the safety of bindings is unbelievable now, compared with what it was 15 years ago," says Jonathan Hedges of the Fulham-based specialist boot-fitter Profeet. Improvements in binding and boot technology have made broken ankles a rarity for skiers; now, the shock of a fall tends to be transferred to the knee – which is, unfortunately, a more complicated joint, held together by cruciate ligaments. So the focus of most binding developments is on improving the release in the event of the kind of fall – a backward or forward, twisting movement – that most compromises those ligaments.

Salomon uses two technologies (it calls them Quadrax and Spheric respectively) to facilitate the toe-piece release. The first lets the boot exit upwards; the second, triggered by "pedals" underneath, enables the boot to slide out laterally more easily in a forward fall. Both technologies are used, in a refined form, on the company's new binding for this season, called Cosmic. Hedges regards the Salomon bindings as ideal for beginners and intermediates; but for more accomplished, all-mountain skiers he favours Marker's Motion bindings. They have a similar device to Quadrax to let the toe-piece lift in the event of a backwards fall, and a moving plate to help the boot twist out laterally. But the Motion models have the performance benefit of a binding platform that puts added pressure on to the ski edges.

Binding technology is about to become more complicated, however. Increasingly, skis and bindings are sold as a package, the two elements only compatible with products from either the same or an associated manufacturer. Next season, the US manufacturer Line – synonymous with new-school trick skiing – launches its first ski-and-binding package in the UK. And just as its twin-tipped skis are designed for skiing forwards or backwards, so is its binding. Called Reactor, it has a heel-piece which – like the toe-piece – can release the boot laterally, rather than just upwards. It not only makes for safer backwards landings but also, says Line, "dramatically reduces torque to your knee during backward twisting falls".

The Reactor was designed by an engineer who has registered almost 200 snowboard, ski, binding and boot patents. He is called Dave Dodge. Bizarrely, what little information there is about him on the internet is sandwiched between endless sites promoting the work of an "adult" actor of the same name.

For more information on Profeet, call 020-7736 0046