- Hi.
I'm Brennan Metzler
with the American Association of Snowboard Instructors.
- And I'm Grant Bishop with PSIA.
- And we're here with REI Co-op
to share a few ideas and tips
about uphill travel with you.
- Whether you're a beginner or you've done it before,
we're gonna give you some tips
as far as how to make it a little bit more enjoyable,
avoid some of the pitfalls that you might have.
- This video is gonna cover skills at the trailhead,
on the skin track as you make your way up,
and at the top of your tour
as you transition back to downhill.
- Okay, let's get started.
(casual music)
- Hey, so we're here at the trailhead.
We're ready to go for a tour.
Our first tip for you
is learning how to put your skins on right.
There's also a video on how splitboards work.
Please go check that out if you're a splitboarder.
On a splitboard,
skins do go on a specific side of the board.
It's important that you match them up
so that the shape of the skin
matches the shape of the specific side of the snowboard.
When attaching a skin,
you're gonna start from the tip of the snowboard
and work your way to the tail.
We're gonna pull the skin out from the tip
all the way towards the tail
slowly fastening the skin,
pasting the skin against the base,
even between the two edges.
I'm gonna try to leave a little bit of each edge showing
in case we encounter some side hill.
I'll have some nice traction on the way up the skin track.
Gonna work my way down the ski,
making sure there's no wrinkles
or little air pockets beneath the skin,
keeping it right in the middle of that ski.
A single push down the base,
and that skin is stuck to the bottom of the gear.
There's one additional step to take
before we start skinning,
and that's fastening the tail clip.
The tail clip is important because it keeps snow
from getting underneath this part of the skin
and slowly over the tour peeling it back.
Once you have your skin on the base,
we are gonna fasten our tail clip
so that it's smooth and pulled taut
and no snow can get underneath here.
And that'll keep the skin sticking all day long
one, two, three, or four laps into this tour.
- So the same rules apply for skiing.
One of the things you might want to look at
is you want to keep the base of your ski and everything
as dry as possible,
so if you see a little water on there,
just give her a little wipe down.
On skis, typically, you're gonna see
a tip loop and a tail clip.
You're gonna start with the tip loop.
Make sure you pull this nice and taut.
And then same thing,
just kinda take it down right around the edges,
making sure the edges are free of the skin,
if you're on a side hill
just being able to put an edge in if you need it.
So as you kind of come to the tail here,
there's lots of different types of clips.
This one happens to fit in the notch
right back here conveniently so it fits your ski.
But you're just gonna kind of clip it in there
and then we're ready to roll.
Okay, so hopefully you're nice and toasty and warm
when you're putting your skins on,
but now we're about to go uphill.
So when you go uphill, it's gonna be a lot of work,
and you're gonna get really hot.
So it's better to go ahead and start off cold
and take off that nice puffy put it in your vest.
- I'm gonna put mine in my backpack.
- So one of the things that's gonna be more comfortable
and efficient on the trail
is being able to move your ankle,
and if you're in a touring boot,
pretty much all of them come with a Walk Mode.
That's this lever right here,
and it just allows your ankle to move more freely
and it's way more comfortable and efficient on the trail.
So before you go, lift up into Walk Mode,
and then you're set for the trail.
So when we're out on the skin track,
we want to be as efficient as possible,
and one of the ways that we can be very efficient
is by keeping the ski in contact with the snow.
As soon as you start lifting up feet,
this ski weighs a lot, this binding weighs a lot,
and so does your foot,
and over the course of the day,
that's gonna easily double the amount of effort
that you put into your skinning.
- Yeah, absolutely.
And getting good traction on the skin track
is key for having a nice, easy, fun tour.
So one idea to help you kind of maximize that traction
is as you take that stride forward,
go ahead and push down on that heel.
That's gonna set the skin against the snow
and then give you a nice stable platform
that you can pull yourself up off of.
So, again, push down that heel and then pull yourself up.
So our skin track's gotten steeper,
and it's getting a little uncomfortable
and a little awkward to continue upward.
Thankfully, touring gear comes with
something called a heel riser.
And a heel riser, just a lever or a piece of the binding
that raises our heel up off the board,
keeps us over our gear, and makes it much easier
and comfortable to go uphill.
So on my splitboard bindings,
those heel risers are located directly underneath them.
I have two different levels, for this pitch
I'm gonna engage both of them.
You can see that my heel is now up off the board,
which is gonna make this whole thing a lot more fun.
- And for skis, just standing here right now,
this pitch, it's kind of not ergonomical
the way I'm standing,
so if I want to put up the riser
it just makes it a little easier.
So I can do it a couple ways.
There's differences in different bindings
of what you can do.
I can reach over and set it down.
As you get a little bit better,
you can just flick it with a pole.
And that's just a lot easier.
One thing to keep in mind,
if it's just a little hill
and it's flat on the other side,
it might be a waste of time
to swap them and swap them back,
so you might just want to keep going.
In this case, it's a sustained pitch,
so we'll just go for it.
Oftentimes on the trail, you find situations like this.
The good snow is up there, but it's kind of steep.
Rather than going straight up this,
we're gonna try and find an easier route.
- You might be tempted
just to set your skin track straight up a slope,
but that can actually be more difficult
or even impossible to get up if the snow is slick
or if it doesn't quite go right.
So rather than shooting straight for the top of something,
go ahead and set a series of more gradual switchbacks
that gets you to that same point.
That'll help you save energy, keep it conversational,
and it'll make your day a little more fun, a little easier.
So when you come to a switchback
and you're gonna make a kickturn,
you're gonna follow a couple steps.
We need to get our skis from pointing this direction
to pointing that direction.
The first step is to skin just a little bit by it
and plant your downhill ski.
Once you feel balanced on this,
go ahead and move your poles,
turn the old uphill ski and set it in the new skin track.
Once I'm stable here,
I'm gonna move my body over the ski,
pick up the outside ski, give it a little shake,
set it in the new track, we're good to go.
- Same thing with skis.
The key is the weight transfer.
So huge big step with the feet is a little bit harder,
so I'm gonna swing her around, and put weight on this,
pause, bring the ski up,
take her around.
All right, so we made it to the top,
so now it's time for our transition to be able to ski.
It's time to get your boards ready,
binding in ski mode, as well as the boot and ski mode.
- Now we're gonna remove our skins
and keep them warm and dry.
So we're actually gonna move from tail to tip this time.
We're gonna remove the tail clip on the skin.
We're gonna be careful here as we peel the skin back
to make sure that this sticky side
doesn't end up in the snow
'cause if it does, it could be TKO
for the rest of your tour.
Gonna peel it all the way down.
Come on off.
And then I'm gonna stick it
sticky side to sticky side right to itself.
Fold over, go ahead and put that inside my jacket.
Keep it nice and warm for next lap.
- Same thing.
So I'm gonna start by taking off the clip
and then just peeling it all the way down,
trying to keep it as dry as possible.
Set down the ski so it doesn't run away.
Nice fold in half,
making sure there's no dirt or water.
And then right into the jacket
where it's nice and warm and dry.
Sweet, so splitboard binding,
when we were in uphill mode, we had the high back back.
It was away from our ankle.
If you try to snowboard like that,
your board's not gonna be very responsive.
So before you go to downhill mode,
don't forget to add that forward lean back in.
And now the binding has more angle;
my board will ride the way I like it to.
- Okay, we're suited and booted.
We're ready to go.
One thing before we go
is we wanna kind of look around us
and make sure that we're following proper etiquette.
So some of that might include
not messing up skin tracks,
whether it's boot packing, skiing over them,
things like that.
- And a great place to learn how to travel uphill
is in ski resorts.
So if you are happening
to be interested to go up a ski resort,
check in with patrol, check in with their website,
to check their uphill access policy.
Some resorts have designated routes.
They like to know where you are
so that their grooming, their patrol,
their snow making can function safely,
and you can have a great experience as well.
Well, shoot, man, should we go have some fun?
- Yeah, let's do it.
(upbeat music)