Uphill Travel Help

[::: :::]

Depends.

too heavy, just pee on yourself like a triathlete

[smitchell333]

RE: steep versus low angle skin track you are both wrong

Skin tracks can definitely be too steep and mean sliding backwards for the subsequent skiers, leg burning craziness that exhausts you after a few hundred vf.

But they can also be way too flat and zig zag endlessly, unnecessarily doubling or tripling the mileage and adding strenuous kick turns every zig. Long flat tracks kill me just as easily as too steep. I HATE a ski track that traverses back and forth through moderately steep terrain where an elegant S up and around will get you there without extra distance OR unnecessary steepness.

The bottom line IMO is to always strive to find the middle ground in setting a track unless the terrain forces you to do one or another.

[B__]

Are your skins slipping back (even slightly), losing some energy with each stride? If so you might do yourself a favor and lessen the angle. If they are holding, and you are not struggling to earn your potential energy, then have at it if steep is your preference. Or choose the middle way. Personally I am more frequently annoyed by tracks that meander too much than ones that are too direct. The opposite may be true in cases when a track punched into powder has iced up overnight.

The spinner/grinder analogy to cycling is a good one.

[plugboots]

He didn't get to ski during the BBI storm, but this was from Sunday. He' manages pretty well when it's deep, actually.


Here's the super mellow skintrack I set that Kedar uses.

[plugboots]

OK, check out the cluster fuck we avoided in Great Scott. I usually only take maybe 4 kickturns in the same place. 12 people and a dog, ziggin' and a zaggin' all over the fucking joint.

[Fritz]

^^holy Hannah.

[hutash]

Some people are just more fit.

It is not necessarily about how fit an individual is, but how efficient they are at a given angle. Sure, a fit person can skin a steep track faster and longer then a fat slob, but that same fit person will get to the top faster and using less energy with the optimal angle. There certainly are times when steep is better , but generally speaking a moderate angle is better then a steep angle over the whole course of the day.

It is about efficiency, not fitness.

[I've seen black diamonds!]

It is about efficiency, not fitness.

This. The most efficient angle is pretty well established, sort of like the most efficient cadence for running. There might be a little individual variation, but not a whole lot.

But this doesn't take into account the terrain being navigated, the frequency and difficulty of kick turns required, or whether or not efficiency is more important than expediency on a given day.

In general, however, I'd say that steep skin tracks are whack.

[blazes_boylan]

Great post...some great, detailed advice here. Nice!!!

[SKIP IN7RO]

Bump to keep track of this.

[rod9301]

I'm guilty often of a steep track, but I found that I can maintain my motivation easier if I skin a more mellow angle. Maybe that's related to how less hard I work.

But it seems that I can ship a mellow track for a long way.

Anyway, what's really tiring for me is booting up a couloir in powder.

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using TGR Forums mobile app

[mall walker]

yeah this is an excellent thread. bookmarked and have bought stuff cuz of it.

[plugboots]

yeah this is an excellent thread. bookmarked and have bought stuff cuz of it.

You bought a dog?

[XXX-er]

On a slope that is steep enough for you to backslide on the track you can set a shallower track going farther/faster or a steeper track to going slower/shorter but I think you might find it takes the same amount of time

[TEXASS]

I decided to skin all the way up Lassen this summer. Headed out of the parking lot from the Devestaded area. Long way to snow but started skinning up the bowl
Steeeep. Almost made it too.
Then the skins got in some wet snow and I was caught in the worlds slowest wet slide.
Surface snow only
Lost about 300 feet.


Just wanted to try

[XXX-er]

now that you mention it a couple years ago we were goin up "the hour glass" a local steep feature, my buddy was taking the shortest route boot packing straight up the middle while I was still on skis & crampons off to the lookers right. I was covering more ground, but I remember finding it interesting that even tho he was a very fit dude going straight up and I was covering more ground he wasn't any higher up the feature than I was

when the whole fuckign thing let go ...except for my side

hence my assertion that you can go slower going straight up or you can be faster going on a longer track

but the time spent doing it will be the same?

[philly552]

This thread went a lot bigger than I thought it would haha. Was looking back at it to refresh for this season.

FYI I took a lot of info and put it to use and dang, made a huge difference. We skied a local peak a few days ago and totally crushed it. Had about a four mile approach to the peak and made it in about 3 hours. For the ruggedness and steady pace we took I am pretty happy with it. Looking forward to a lot more riding this year. If anybody is around Missoula/St Ignatius I’d love to link up for some touring 🤙🏼

[baron]

^ nice skin

fyi 2,000 vert is usually the length of one run in a typical North America mountain, I expect you would need to do longer trips or multiple runs to get 3k, 4k or more vertical.

[philly552]

^ nice skin

fyi 2,000 vert is usually the length of one run in a typical North America mountain, I expect you would need to do longer trips or multiple runs to get 3k, 4k or more vertical.

The trailhead sits at about 4400 and we topped out just under 7400 and that was just once up and once down. I could’ve done a few more laps of the peak itself (~500 feet) but we ran out of light. Definitely focused on efficiency over speed and that helped significantly.

[baron]

The trailhead sits at about 4400 and we topped out just under 7400 and that was just once up and once down. I could’ve done a few more laps of the peak itself (~500 feet) but we ran out of light. Definitely focused on efficiency over speed and that helped significantly.

Nice! we have to start ski hiking around 7k-8k feet here...and it maxes around 10500 in utardville

[margotron]

we should go skiing.

Lots of good advice here. So I'll counter it with some probably bad advice.

(1) Mellow skin tracks aren't great all the time or for everybody, not that anyone said they were. I sometimes see mellow skin tracks with way too many kickturns, which slow things down dramatically. Also, some folks are just grinders who prefer to power up a steeper slope rather than speed through a mellower one. To me, it's like biking. Yeah, spinning smaller gears faster works for most people. But some of us are more comfortable grinding the big gears. Try both and see what works for you.

(2) On big days, I sometimes have a Red Bull for the last push when perhaps my morale is fading. My partners mock me, but I swear it really helps. That's the only time I have energy drinks.

(3) Hyper-efficient partners can be as annoying as super-slow partners. Sometimes it's absolutely necessary to move quickly. Other times, I want to take 15 minutes to enjoy my burrito on the top of a warm summit without being rushed.

[auvgeek]

Here’s my “go faster, ski more” rant. [...]

“Cheap” speed (no $’s, minimal personal effort)

- Look really hard at what you’re carrying. Cut back on the unnecessary weight. Do you really need goggles in your pack on a bluebird day? What about the layering you’re carrying (see layering section below)? Is your “oh shit kit” more than a lighter, knife, Volie strap and emergency mylar bivy?

- Examine how much water you’re carrying vs how much you’re actually drinking (it may be that you’re carrying way more than you need, or alternately, that you’re getting dehydrated, which will slow you down).

- Set lower angle skin tracks. [...]

- On the subject of heel lifters, it’s amazing how much time over the course of a day you can spend futzing with your heel lifters. Let’s say it takes 40 seconds every time you stop to change lifter height. If you do it 20 times in a day, that means that 14 minutes of your touring day was spent changing lifter height. Find an angle of skin track where you can set them once, at the trailhead, and leave them there. Sure, sometimes you’ll be too high (no big deal), and sometimes too low. But the rando-thing has taught me that being too low is very easy to mitigate with good skinning technique. It will feel extra hard at first, but you’ll quickly adapt.

- Work on your transitions. Like, actually practice them, with a stopwatch. Taking off your skis to take off your skins takes way more time than working out an easy, efficient, skis on transition. You might save 3 minutes per transition, 4 if you zip your skins in your jacket instead of taking off your pack (don’t take off your pack!). Same with skins-on. Take them out of your warm jacket (where the glue has gotten nice and sticky) and put them on in a specific order that you’ve practiced. The skins in the jacket trick is a neat one. Having warm glue really helps with putting them on quickly and having them stay on well on a long tour. Having a glue failure will really cut into your touring time. Let’s say that skins on/off practice and zipping them in your jackets saves 5 minutes per set of transitions = 15 minutes on a 3 lap day.

- Layering : Wear less clothes. This was the biggest change I made. Start out cold. If you’re not cold standing beside the car, and on the first 20 minutes of your ski tour, you’re overdressed. Constantly adding and removing layers will eat up insane amounts of time. In general, the less you remove your pack in a day of touring, the better. This less-is-more clothing philosophy has some knock-on effects. You’ll try a bit harder uphill, because you’ll need to keep moving to stay warm. You’ll be warmer on the descents, because you won’t be sweaty (endeavor to never be sweaty). Overdressing early will make you damp, which will make you need to add layers, which will eventually overheat you, so you’ll have to stop and remove them. It’s a vicious cycle. If it takes you 3 minutes per layer change, and you make 5 of them in a day (one at the beginning and an on/off at the top and bottom of every lap on a 3 lap tour), that’s 15 minutes. You probably won’t spend as long sitting around at the top and bottom of the runs, because if you do, you’ll get cold. I did a 5 hour tour yesterday and never took off or added a layer. Just kept moving.

- Glove systems are part of the above. Think about a light liner glove/over glove combo. The over glove should either live on your ski pole handle, or dangling from wrist keepers on the up. Sweaty hands = cold hands. Either way, you want to be able to add/remove heat from your hands without ever stopping or taking your pack off.

- Use the “brain” (top) of your pack strategically. Use it for the things you’ll likely need during the tour - food, mittens (only put in the pack on a cold day tour. Cold hands will make you ski less), beanie (unless it was cold enough to skin with it on). The key is to have these things on top so your partner can get them out for you. Don’t take off your pack! It takes time, and every time you do, it stops being an effective insulation layer on your back. So you expose your sweaty back, get cold, have to add a layer, that you then have to take off, and you’re back to wasting time adding and removing layers.

- Find some “fast” touring partners. Or at least faster than you. [....]

- Have a conversation! One of the joys of ski touring is that it’s a partnership (even if sometimes you chose to be your own partner). But more importantly, the ability to talk easily without running out of breath is the easiest hallmark of maintaining an aerobic heart rate. The big key to covering a lot of ground is NOT to move fast, it’s to keep moving at a steady pace. If you go anaerobic for any real length of time, you will compromise your ability to keep moving steadily. You may be faster for a short period, but the accumulated blood lactate will slow your day-long average pace considerably. Pay attention to your partner's end of the conversation. If you’re having a “low gravity” day and cruising, but they’re breathing hard, they’re only going to get slower, and so are you while you wait for them. Drop your pace and increase the “sustained average”. On the flip side of that coin, if you’re the one struggling, suck up your pride and say something.

Not Cheap Speed (Buying your way to easier ski touring).

- Have your water easily at hand. Either a Camelbak (very high maintenance in the winter) or a shoulder strap mounted bottle holder. That’s straight rando technology, and you look like a dork, but you’ll stay better hydrated than you’ve ever been before. I don’t have to ever stop to get a drink, I just grab the bottle off my shoulder and take a swig. No need to stop for even 5 seconds. Better yet, combine your hydration and your nutrition. We can only absorb about 200 calories per hour while exercising anyway, so what’s the point of eating a 600 calorie meal sitting in place (maybe getting cold, maybe needing to add/remove layers), when you could just mix some Hammer Fuel or Tailwind, or other 200 cal/hr drink mix into the water you’re already drinking? That’s not to say don’t stop and enjoy where you are (that’s the point of the game after all), but if you save 2 minutes of getting water out of your pack 5 times a tour (or 8-10 times if you’re actually staying well hydrated), and 10 minutes of eating in place, you’re 20 minutes ahead of the game.

- If you regularly do tours that involve bootpacks, get a pack with a rando-race style “hook and loop” ski attachment system. [...]

- This dumb/genius jacket:
http://www.skimolife.com/journal/201...sh-anorak.html
[...]

- Here’s where this gets serious and I commit TGR forum heresy. Lighter, maybe even (gasp!) narrower, shorter skis. [...]

- Light, high range of motion boots with a fast/easy mode change were the second biggest game changer for my own touring. I bought race boots (Scarpa Aliens) thinking they’d only be for racing, and they’ve become the only boots I use. At first they feel pretty weird skiing. I was used to the “crutch” of 4 buckle beef boots. It’s amazing how quickly you adapt, because now I ski just as fast in my “no buckle” boots. That is not the solution for everyone. Some (many?) people like to ski way faster and jump off of way taller things than I do. But if you milk the turns you earned, and largely keep your skis on the ground, you may be pushing too much boot up the hill. The biggest advantage to the high range of motion boot (examples of what I’m talking about - TLT 7, Arc Teryx Procline, Scarpa F1) is the gain in stride length. Not only because you get to push your leading foot further forward during a step, but because most of these type of boot have the rando race style toe pivot placement (4-5mm further back than they’re placed in a boot like a Mastrale). This gains you more stride from the rear foot. How much depends on the angle you’re skinning at (more on a lower angle skin track, way less on a steep one). But at that 14 degree “euro ideal” track as much as an inch per step. Maybe 4” when combined with the cuff rotation. 4” per step x 10,000 steps (which is conservative, but works out to about 5 miles of total distance traveled) = 3300’ feet of “free” distance you’ve gained for literally no extra effort. At that 14 degree skin angle that’s 380’ of extra vert. Throwing 1 lever to tighten the entire boot and go into ski mode saves a lot of time over tightening 3 or 4 buckles. Figure it saves 2 minutes per transition. During our theoretical 3 lap tour, that’s 12 minutes.

[...]

So here’s the rough time savings math on the above for our theoretical 3 lap tour --
Not messing with heel lifters - 14 minutes
Fast, practiced transitions - 15 minutes
Not adding/removing layers - 15 minutes
Pre planning your tour - 10 minutes
Efficient water/Food - 20 minutes
Rando Race Style ski attachment - 4 minutes
Not buckling / unbuckling 4 buckles - 12 minutes
Tip Strip Skins - 3 minutes

Total = 93 minutes saved + 380' of free vert from efficient skinning boots
At the low, casual, pace of 1000’ of skinning per hour that’s over 1800’ of extra vert you just traveled without actually doing the hard work of getting any fitter.

bumping these excellent posts for this season. Please read the full posts, my [...] edits to get under 10k chars

[doebedoe]

bumping these excellent posts for this season. Please read the full posts, my [...] edits to get under 10k chars

Literally searched for this and subscribed yesterday. Best info.

If you're in Denver and want to have a short tour tomorrow AM, hollar.

[auvgeek]

Literally searched for this and subscribed yesterday. Best info.

If you're in Denver and want to have a short tour tomorrow AM, hollar.

Sadly, left yesterday morning. I'll ping you next time cuz I'd love to get out.

To continue in the vein of the advice here: eat and drink adequately *beforehand.* It's basically free weight. Leaving the car hungry and dehydrated means you have to carry more food and water, and it's also hard to make up while you're moving. Leaving well-fed and well-hydrated means you don't need to carry as much and makes the day way more fun. For me, it's also hard to make up dehydration and a caloric deficit on the morning of a big day, so I try to hydrate and eat enough the evening before, and continue that the morning of, a big day. Experiment and find what works best for you.

Side note: there's a story in TFTNA where Steve House mentions that alpine climbing beast Marko Prezelj typically eats a huge breakfast and hyperhydrates and then moves all day in the aerobic zone without eating or drinking until dinner. Similarly, Kilian Jornet says in one of his videos that he only needs to bring 3 candy bars (Snickers) for a huge (77 vkm) day. You can only do this if you leave well fed and hydrated, stay in your aerobic zone, and have good fat adaptation so you don't having to eat and convert the glucose to energy. (Fat adaptation is a key product of aerobic training and beyond the purpose of this post.)

[mall walker]

bumping these excellent posts for this season. Please read the full posts, my [...] edits to get under 10k chars

excellent bump, probably my favorite posts on the forum