Kick skins: the most useful handful of gear since GORP. These BCA Skin scraps I use weigh in at 65g, including the tip clip. Add a hyper light stuff sack and total weight is 77g.

Unless you’re skiing the Red Lady, just about every backcountry ski tour in Crested Butte requires a fairly flat valley approach of 1 to 3 miles. The tried and true method for these laborious tours is to slog in and slog out with big fatty skins on those big fatty skis that are so much fun in powder. I’ve tried other methods, too. One day I skied home from Snodgrass with one skin on, one skin off, like some kind of seizing, lurching skateboarder. Granted, I made it back to the car before my ski partners, but when I got there I was so off balance I could only walk in counter-clockwise circles for a good four minutes. I’ve also tried kick wax, but that stuff’s too gunky; if you use it before the climb it’ll mank up your skins and then kill your downhill buzz.

Enter kick skins. In a nut shell, kick skins kick ass. I learned about them from all [Read More]