05 Uphill
Wands for Ski Mountaineering – Part One
Wands are an obscure and trivial part of ski mountaineering, which makes them a perfect topic for straightchuter.com. I’ve carried thousands of wands, placed hundreds and actually used them for emergency navigation about five times, which made it all worthwhile. It’s hard to describe how calming and reassuring finding a wand can be when you […]
Anti-Glomming Tutorial Video
I had my first serious springtime glomming session over the weekend, which prompted this 3:36 minute video on how I remedy this wretched malady while on a tour. I wrote a post about glomming almost a year ago to the week and it is one of those things where doing a half-assed repair job usually […]
Kick Turn Fun & Games
After many thousand kick-turns, sometimes it’s fun to throw some challenge into a few of them. This was a good one. Starting out in your high pegs (of course…) after 2,800′ of breaking trail, surmount a wind-lip and insert your Whippet into a woodpecker hole in an old growth tree. Pull up on the Whippet […]
Skinning Tricks – Crabbing
Here’s a skinning trick I use all the time, which for lack of a better term I call “crabbing” as the idea is move sideways like a crab. This technique is useful for getting around short, slick, firm areas such as you might find on a ridgeline or when trying to contour around a rib […]
%&!@#ing Glomming
Arrrg. ‘Tis the season for skin glomming, and what a hateful time that is. Nothing zaps your power-meter quite like an eight pounds of snow stuck to the bottom of each ski, especially when it is hot and sunny out. Whenever I’m getting really beaten down by glomming, I always smile remembering an outing with […]
How to Skin Argenta
… in 3,246 not so easy steps. I think I enjoy skinning up Argenta almost as much as skiing down as it’s a fun challenge and a very efficient way to gain vertical. With the track shown below, I start out with no climbing pegs, immediately go to high peg, stay that way for a […]
Skin Glue Touch-Up
Blown out skin glue is a very common malady and with our recent snap of cold weather, I’ve seen at least one skin track casualty per day due to *&^%’ing glue. I think this is especially common in the Wasatch where it is very easy to get a dusting of snow on your skins while […]
Working the Skin Pocket
In XC/Nordic skiing, the term “wax pocket” denotes a certain zone on the ski where applying wax is going to give you the optimal blend of both grip and glide. A similar concept applies to climbing skins, although the “skin pocket” is fixed as you can’t adjust it fore/aft each day like you can by […]
Launch Pads
Ripping skins at the top of a climb is ideally done on a summit or flatish ridge, but it doesn’t always work out that way. There are a lot of times where I end up stopping on a steep slope next to a cliff or in the middle of a steep pitch to change over […]
Slow Motion Uphill Kick-Turn Video
Uphill kick-turns are one of the essentials of backcountry skiing. In general, it is better to do a “walk around” turn to change direction, but when the slope gets too steep, kick-turns are the way to go. It’s hard to say that there is any one way that is better than the others as much […]
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