Tips & Technique
Skinning in the Sandbox
While skinning up Argenta today I was reminded of the term “skinning in a sandbox.” About the only silver lining on this condition is the apt and funny mental imagery of actually skinning uphill in a sandbox, but aside from that, it is a very frustrating experience. What makes it so annoying is that it […]
Skinning Outside the Box
A common skinning malady is to turf face-first just as you are committing to an uphill kickturn on a steep, greasy switchback. This can be fun the first few times it happens, but gets old quickly and can be easily remedied. Over time, skin tracks get beat-out for a variety of reasons. One of the […]
Death by a Thousand Missteps
I’m always tormented when I see ragged skin tracks as I feel compelled to say something, yet at the same time it’s hard not to come across as being rude. “Excuse me my friend, but do you know your skinning technique is all phucked up?” It’s kind of like seeing someone with an open fly […]
It’s All About the Up
Coming from an alpine skiing background, it took me a few years to warm up to the idea of backcountry skiing. It didn’t help that the guy I learned how to backcountry ski from was wicked-fast, which meant my early outings were exhausting efforts of trying to keep up where all I could think was […]
Faith Base Skinning
While skinning up a steep, exposed slope today in a total white-out, it occurred to me that we were engaging in Faith Based Skinning. Faith Based Skinning (FBS) is when you feel nervous about a slope, but continue on anyway because, well, nothing bad has happened yet. This is not such a great idea. I consider snowpacks […]
Skiing During Wartime
The Wasatch Mountains have been getting some good storms lately and it has been dumping snow here all day. Yippy! I’ve had to plow out the driveway twice in eight hours, the wind is howling and the avalanche danger is on the rise. All of which means it is a good time to go skiing this […]
The Extended Column Test (ECT)
As much as anything, I love learning new snow stability test as I get bored doing the same old ones over and over. I use to do a lot of Reusch Block tests, but over the years they started getting smaller and smaller. Nowadays, I’m into digging a pit which is big enough to preform […]
Developing an Eye for Angles – Part 2
Part of the challenge of correctly identifying slope angles by eye is that they often look much steeper when viewed straight-on than they do from the side. (This is also a good photography trick – shooting straight-on, like from a helicopter or across a valley makes the slopes look lots steeper). A classic case of this is […]
Developing an Eye for Angles – Part 1
An experienced car mechanic can look at a nut or bolt from ten feet away and instantly tell you what size it is down to the 64th of an inch. It is not magic, but more a case of repetitive familiarity within a certain range. Cars tend to use bolts in the 1/4″ to 1″ […]
Skin Set Up – Part Two
Now that the edges have been trimmed back and the nose has been set, I like to tweak my tails a bit (the tails of the skins that is). Although I designed the BD ClipFix and used that system for years, I’ve now gravitated towards the STS system (shown below). I liked the ClipFix, but […]
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