Comments on: Steep Skinning – Gear Adjustment

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 04:03:35 +0000

Hi John – That’s a great question and although I don’t know the answer right offhand, I’ll check it out and report back.

I know when I was skiing Fritschi bindings, I could barely squeeze into a “small” size, which I preferred as it had less bar to break, but also meant that the heel riser was steeper (shorter leg of the triangle).

By: john d

john d — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 03:42:19 +0000

Andrew, although I agree with you that there are times when a steep skintrack is just what is needed, this meadow skipper has suffered on a Wasatch skintrack now and again. Most problems seem to come when the track reaches an angle such that I can no longer properly weight the heel and end up having to pressure the toe in order to maintain balance. Out of curiosity (and in an attempt to add some legitimacy to my whining), I took a measurement of heel-height (w/ high post) and pivot-point-to-lift-contact-point-length, i.e. the two sides of a right triangle. Applying the formula arctan(height/length) nets me a lift angle of 13.3 degrees, which doesn’t sound too impressive. I’m hurt by a combo of BD O2 and size 13 boots, but I’m curious what your setup measures out at? Guess I should make up a really high pair of the oldtime pvc heels for those special moments, or maybe I should just convert to Dynafit? :-)

By: mark

mark — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:23:54 +0000

I like having edges exposed.

Not familiar with the G3 tool, but a good old-fashioned utility knife works just fine. Better than the Black Diamond letter opener to be sure.

I also think fatter skis make balancing on full heel pegs easier. Since most of my skiing is dawn patrol, and we’re trying to get in as much vert as fast as we can, I’m on full pegs at least 80% of the time.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:58:43 +0000

Hi OMR – I wrote something up on that earlier which can be found here:

http://straightchuter.com/2008/12/skin-set-up-part-one/

I prefer to trim the skins back by about 3/16″ of an inch from the edges as I like/love having the sharp edge when I need it. The downside is that it takes longer to trim them, but it looks like G3 has a cool little tool which will help with this.

By: OMR

OMR — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:53:12 +0000

Andrew, what are your thoughts on cutting skins wall to wall vs. edge free? BD lit says to leave the edges open but over time I’ve come to prefer the full coverage. If it’s steep and icey enough to require the bight of metal edges, booting or crampons are preferrable to skins anyway. The skin edges get blitzed anyway so thats no reason to cut them edge-narrow. Thoughts?