Feb. 23, 2007 Skinning in Stevens Pass

OK, I had a humiliating experience yesterday. This is my first full year on AT gear after 30 years on tele gear.  I usually ski alone but I was in group of 12 skinning up the N side of Heather ridge. I have 70 mm skins on my Atomic Kialas 88 mm waist 126 tip. So.... in front of about seven  20 and 30 year olds on skis and snow shoes (I'm almost 61) I couldn't get up the skin track without falling, sliding back generally flailing about and probably most important using up way to much energy. The question is how wide should my skins be? 100mm cut fitted to the waist? Or wider? Need some input here.

greg

Depends on the snow conditions. In soft snow with no steep traverses, your present setup will probably be fine.

On a hard snow or an older track, you ideally want your skins to cover pretty much everything except the edges from just in front of your boot to about 1 1/2 feet in back of your boot (so about 82-83mm in the middle for the Kailas). The coverage in the tip isn't so important, what matters is where your weight is concentrated. In the meantime, try to stand up and put weight on your heels, and loosen up the cuffs of your boots so you can "roll" your ankles over and get more skin contact. Ski crampons will solve a lot of problems on hard snow too.

If you're buying new skins, you may as well go wall-to-wall all the way, 120 is about right. If you can get 100's cheap, those will work too.

"Wall to wall" coverage and you will be amazed at what you can climb (as long as you have tall enough climbing posts under your heals....). I've been using new skin which I bought on line (climbingskinsdirect.com) and cut them right to the outside of edge (no base nor edge showing) as I'm also using them on a new pair of skis that are slightly wider north of my boot. The wal-l to- wall deal can always be trimmed if it is not your cup of tea ;I like being able to go straight quite steep slopes. Perhaps on the hard pack/ice, a little edge will be missed for bite...time will tell (but hey, I can always trim them so no worries for me...)

sg

The first time you try traversing ice, frozen corn or dense windpack on anything over 30 degrees you'll regret having covered the edges. You won't be able to go straight up in those conditions either.

When I say "wall-to-wall" I mean covering all but about 1/2 mm of base material on either side.

greg- are you tall, or do you have a really long stride? I have had similar issues: wall-to-wall skins, everyone else I am touring with has no problem, and I am sliding all over. I eventually found that my extra long stride (I'm 6'5" and tend to get one side's bindings almost even with the opposite ski tip) causes the problems. Shortening things way down to what feels like tiny strides keeps the weight on the skins.

greg- are you tall, or do you have a really long stride?

Neither, but what you say about shortening up your stride when grip is marginal is true; it's much easier to keep weight on your heels where it does the most good.

Edited to add: Ooops, I guess you probably are asking about the greg who started the thread, but it should work for him as well!