Why do tele/rando skiers boot up mountains?

The REAL question should be: how steep can you skin dragging a pony keg? Maybe kam can chime in....

Yep, that IS a good question, Paul

[quote author=ron j  'Course loading up is a lot more complicated for me 'cause I usually already have my walker loaded up too.[/quote]<br><br>Yeh, you know Ron I've been thinking of buying me one of those geezer-specific backpacks, with the special velcro-ed sleeves for the cane and walker, and the metered medication dispenser built into the hydration tube. I just can't decide whether to drop the extra bucks on the anti-gravity option. What do you think?

Yeh, you know Ron I've been thinking of buying me one of those geezer-specific backpacks, with the special velcro-ed sleeves for the cane and walker, and the metered medication dispenser built into the hydration tube.  I just can't decide whether to drop the extra bucks on the anti-gravity option.  What do you think?  

<br><br>You're kidding, right? Why, hell, you haven't even worn out your mountain specific greek sneekers with the wings on the heels and the Ascension skin material on the soles that you climbed Adams with last year. You got a long ways to go, youngster <br>

Because they suck! I cant believe two people actually said they wanted to get the weight on their backs. The whole purpose of skinning is get the weight off your back! When done correctly, skinning involves sliding your skis across the surface. This keeps the weight on the ground. You are not lifting your feet but are sliding them forward. Many gapers do exhibit the bad technique of lifting their ski as they move it forward. Keeping your ski glued to the ground does take practice as the natural stride tends to lift your skis off the snow. Yes when it gets steep, and you can no longer maintain good edge grip then it becomes necessary to boot it up. Don't be a Gaper!

I, too, switch to booting when I feel that it's the more efficient mode of ascent, usually over 30-35 degrees, depending on snow conditions, or in narrow slots/questionable snow cover. Having skied a bunch with khyak this season, I can in retrospect report having made the wrong call on numerous occasions - both taking the skis off and leaving them on - he's gotten there first (sometimes, in my case, the problem was overly aggressive route selection). As far as the conditions originally mentioned in this thread, I wasn't on St. Helens, but in borderline conditions (and especially if you're sinking in past boottop), I would vote for the least taxing mode, which for me is skins. Again, snow conditions are everything, a frozen corn surface or an icy wind-scoured ridge can change that quickly. (On the Birthday Tour, we only booted for about 100 ft. the whole day).<br><br>pb: Not always the best choice for skiing DOWN the hill, but not much more than 10 lbs., whether on your feet or on your back . . .<br>