Efficient ascents are a blend of pacing, route finding, technique and equipment. Like rolling a ball uphill, your approach to skinning should vary according to conditions and terrain, but the underlying idea is to find the most expedient way possible, while not losing any ground.
- Skinning isn’t always about mellow 12 degree shuffling. The fastest way to the top is to use whatever method works best.
Sometimes this means using brute force and sometimes it requires endless finesse. There is no one method of ascent which is always the best, instead it is a constantly shifting selection and the fastest skiers are those who adapt to whatever it takes.
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continued from yesterday…
A good way to learn is to follow in the footsteps (or more likely, skin tracks) of more experienced skiers. Try to match their stride, look where they plant their poles, get a feel for the all day ascent angle, mimic their posture, and generally try to absorb what they are doing, while of course maintaining a safe distance from their tails. It is kind of like uphill osmosis. If you don’t have someone to learn from, see if you can pick out clues from a pre-broken trail. Ascending is only boring if you make it that way. Instead, be active and involved — think about improving and getting more efficient, not just plodding along.
- If you can stay focused and engaged, skinning is fun in the same way as friction climbing. Armond, Weedy and Lorne punching it out up Thunder Mountain.
I had the misfortune of learning how to skin from Alex Lowe. Like most people who went out with him, I was overwhelmed just trying to keep up, let alone do any trail breaking. Among our small group, we’d try to figure out strategies to keep from getting dusted by Alex, like carrying less weight, starting out with less clothing on, getting plenty of sleep, strapping water bottles to our waistbelts, always climbing with one heel lifter setting and many other futile tricks that never seemed to help. What finally did help was when Alex won an international alpine speed climbing championship, as it made me realize it was pointless to try and keep up with him, so I slowed down and started developing my own pace, which over time has increased. Skinning is one of those activities where you get faster by starting out slow, both in the long and short term. The real (and only) secret to speedy climbing it is to do it a lot.
tomorrow - part III
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Struggling uphill is an acquired taste that doesn’t come naturally to most people. It’s hard, slow, sweaty, frustrating and at times monotonous, but if you can get over this, it is your ticket to backcountry bliss. The effort involved with earning your turns is the basic barrier that keeps the backcountry, being what it is - uncrowded. With time and practice, it not only gets easier, but often can be even more enjoyable than the downhill. Really.
- Julia Niles smiling through the pain.
Ascending is a mindset. When you stop fighting it and learn to love it, everything just starts to flow uphill. For many skiers, including myself, this is the magic moment when you suddenly “get” backcountry skiing, as it becomes much less work and a lot more fun. How soon you reach this point depends on how hard you work at it, and the more you do it, the easier it gets. Before long, the only high speed quads you’ll need will be your thighs, not the chairlift. Embrace the burn, seek purification through perspiration and learn the true meaning behind “that which does not kill you, makes you stronger.” Skinning is fun.
On a more practical note, eighty percent of your time in the backcountry will be spent ascending, so it is worth coming to terms with it. Think of the uphill as the skiing and the downhill as the icing on the cake. When the going gets really grim, remember, the harder it is going up, the better it is going down.
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