Hitting a rock is known for inflicting core shots, not skin tears. In this case, at a dip on a ridge while ascending, I skied off the minor rock outcropping at the top of the ski run I call Scott Cutler's Yellow Coat and hit ground and nearly face-planted. From the sound of plastic and metal grinding on rock, I was sure I had a core shot, but no, just a skin rip. What do you even call this? Skin shot? Third degree burn? Road Rash? Skin flapper? I doubt my old, heavyweight Black Diamond Ascension Skins would have torn, I've had ground-hits with them and I barely lost any fibers, and no hint of a tear.
I bought Black Diamond Ultralite Mix STS Climbing Skins this winter to go with my new lightweight rig (BD Helio 88's - 167cm, Atomic Backland Tech Bindings - no brakes, Scarpa F1 boots). The whole rig is light and the skis are surprisingly fun to ski. The Helio line has a reputation for being stiff with little dampening in soft snow, so they are more of a hard-snow ski, but I've had fun with them, even in deep, soft Utah powder. My only complaint, which is due to my choice of a short length (167cm), sometimes I feel like I'm going over the handle bars. This is remedied by balancing body weight over the skis, and staying light on my toes and with that you can sort of mimic a fat ski, like a Voile V6 (yeah, still skinny, but that's my current fatty). And don't sit back on any ski, fat or skinny, as that just makes one look like a Grizzly Gulch tourist. Yeah, fat skis give us mindless turning in deep powder - and who wants to think when there's 12 inches of new snow? - but just remember, the lighter you go, the farther you go, thus more consumption that new 12 inches.
The BD Ultralite Mix STS Climbing Skins skins are surprisingly light but I wasn't expecting them to be hard to handle. They have very little rigidity compared to the BD Ascension Skins. In a strong wind, like when transitioning to ski on a ridge or a peak, they flap and sail in the wind like the thinnest prayer flag in Tibet. When this happens I usually give up trying to fold them neatly and instead just wad them up into a ball and stuff them in my pack. It takes too long to fight them in the wind when friends are waiting on me to ski. The down side of wadded skins is that when transitioning to skin they are a tangled mess of glue and fibers at the bottom of my pack. It takes some work to pull them apart and attach to skis. Again, with the time clock running and OCD friends waiting to skin, the pressure is on. Overall I like my 'heavyweight' Ascension Skins better just for their ease of use. Yeah, twice the weight of the Ultralites, but their substantial thickness aids in transitions due to their easier handling. Another thing, the Ultralites are slightly less grippy than the Ascensions, which is a serious matter on the Wasatch's notoriously steep, 'one-time-use-only' skin tracks (too steep = slippage when packed hard). Wind aside, they are often worth their tougher handling for their weight savings so I'll stick with the Ultralites on calm days, but go with the Ascensions on stormy days solely for their ease of use in strong winds.
Skin repaired, first with a sewing machine but finished by hand-stitching with needle and sinew. Yes, it looks very red-neck, but I think it'll hold. I tried sewing it
with Kara's Bernina but I gave up after breaking four needles, including two
heavy duty needles. The machine seemed to sew through the thin skin just fine, at
least for the first ten stokes but then the needle quickly bogged down and broke. I don't they broke due to the thickness of the skins, rather, I think they picked up a layer of skin glue with every stroke, eventually getting coated with glue and snapped when the friction was too much. Just too much torque from Kara's high-end Bernina which usually sees only fine quilts and delicate lace works of art. After four broken needles and with my darling wife glaring at me (I was invading her terrain, and her $5,000 Bernina), I then sewed it by hand with a needle and sinew. In hind site I should have ironed-off the glue at the spot of the rip. In my defense, in High School I took a Home Econ class where I sewed myself a powder jacket (late 1970's shell), so I'm not a total old-school-Mormon around sewing machines.
Epilogue:
I made a big mistake and didn't change the last needle which was still coated in skin glue. Kara was totally jacked when the fine cloth of her current quilt project, intended for our new granddaughter due in July, was pulled into the bobbin/needle workings of the Bernina. Ooooops! Sorry, K! Dinner at La Qai?
Epilogue:
I made a big mistake and didn't change the last needle which was still coated in skin glue. Kara was totally jacked when the fine cloth of her current quilt project, intended for our new granddaughter due in July, was pulled into the bobbin/needle workings of the Bernina. Ooooops! Sorry, K! Dinner at La Qai?
I've seen you rip your skins off in one stroke in many of your drone videos. (Very cool videos, BTW!) I see the appeal and the advantage of it. The transition is so much faster if you don't have to take your skis off, and it's a way of making sure your skis don't go down-hill without you. Unless I can get shelter from the wind, I've found that the one advantage I have of taking my skis off to rip the skins is that I can partial rip, partial fold, rip, fold, and finally store the skins away. As a bonus, when I reverse the process, I can more easily keep my skin from falling in the snow, because I undo just one of the two folds, lay down the skin, undo the last fold, then finish the lay-down after rotating the ski pi radians. (I like to use radians instead of degrees. Ha!)
ReplyDeleteI think my wife is going to let me buy an ultra-light setup for this next up-coming ski season. I'm hoping to find some carbon-fiber ski boots, but I don't know if they can be punched to accommodate my bunions. I think I'll go with a tech-binding with no ski break, and some much thinner skis, but I don't know much beyond that. Any advice? I probably weigh a lot more than you do, so I may need to take that into consideration. I'm about 5"11', and yes, my wife is pretty short as you saw in the photo.
Spencer, you are right, taking the ski off to de-skin has some big benefits, especially in a strong wind because you have much more control and the ability to fold neatly. But I'm lazy, and incredibly slow in transitions, so I like to cut out as many steps as possible, hence the ripping skins with skis still on. With my new BD Ultrlites, now with a half-width tear, I'm scared to do the one-yank trick as the forces involved might result in ripping the skin in half. The Ultralites are that flimsy. And thinking about it, that would make a funny video!
DeleteOverall I like the light weight and the much smaller pack-ability, but the Ultralites are presenting too many problems (not as grippy, too flimsy so snow builds up between skin and ski at the tip, plus they tear!) so I'll probably go back to the Ascensions.
Seems odd that someone considering self proclaimed as lazy would be backcountry skiing. In my 50+ years of b/c skiing and ski mountaineering, being lazy is the last thing I'd describe myself as. I think the key to efficient transitioning is to find what works best and do it the same way, in the same order, every time. Establish a rhythm to the process. Always be looking for ways to be more efficient.
DeleteMidi510 - I’m just looking for a good time and my friends who turn it in to a precision military operation destroy the good time. Believe me, I’ve seen all types. I started BC skiing in the mid-1970s, on long skinny skis and soft leather boots, so I’ve had a bit of practice. Also, with too much time over the years in running and cycling competitions, the obsession with time has grown stale. I have friends who won’t eat or drink during a transition just to shave off a few seconds, then, three hours later, they are cramping and bonking and they’re ready to call it a day, while I’m still feeling great. Sometimes it pays to stop and smell the tree sap.
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