Why do tele/rando skiers boot up mountains?

In the past month, I have done two very popular ski tours: st. helens and the birthday tour. During both of these tours I noticed an extremely large percentage of people booting up. I understand that they are both popular and have a ladder of footsteps to follow, but why would you want to carry your skis if you can skin?<br><br>joshua<br><br>

Cuz I prefer to have 10 rather than 25 pounds of stuff on my feet. Plus when booting you don't have to worry about icy spots, you don't need to switchback, etc, etc. If I don't sink in, I don't skin.

Because I prefer weight on my back to weight on my feet, given that there isn't a lot of fresh and I won't be postholing. My gait is faster that way.

I understand that more weight on your feet can be worse. Especially, when the snow is firm or icy, skinning sorta sucks, when you can just boot or crampon straight up the slope, but I guess that is why I bought ski-pons.<br> <br>For me, I like to use my skis as much for the touring aspect as well as the downhill and always try to push skinning as much as humanly possible. I guess it all depends on what people are comfortable with and/or what their goals are.<br><br>The only reason I posted this was because on st helens, the snow was very soft and people were still booting. From my perspective, it seemed slower and much more tiring. I was with a snowboarder who was walking up and he was wishing that he had a split board.<br><br><br>

I prefer skinning, but I've timed one against the other and found bootpacking significantly faster and easier under the right conditions. This assumes firm snow, good footing, and a certain degree of steepness; on the flats, or in soft or icy snow, skinning rules. An existing boot ladder makes things even easier.

Doing Hood the other week I took my skis off above the Palmer lift (it was either that or put on ski crampons). It ended up being the wrong decision. With skins I was passing folks but sans skins I was no longer passing--I was noticeably slower and it felt like I was working harder. Snow conditions were firm and there was a good bootrack.<br><br>That said, sometimes when it's firm and even just moderately steep I often feel more comfortable bootpacking with crampons rather then skins and ski crampons even though I generally think it's less efficient.<br><br>