TRANSTIONS-As Easy As 1,2,3.....Putting On your Skins

Putting on skins is another area that one can make up, or loss for that matter, a lot of time in a ski mountaineering race or while racing our buddy's on a powder day.

Most of us will spend at least 5 minutes, if not 15 putting our skins on. Top races will do this in under 60 seconds!!

Just as there is when taking skins off, there are a few key things to remember - take your pole straps off and put poles in one hand (to keep it really simple, drop them on the snow) and have your top unzipped, ready to pull your skins out (remember they aren't in your pack).

The Perfect Fold Every Time

The other day we went over how to remove your skins in a fast and efficient manner that took only 10’s of seconds instead of 10 minutes. Now what to do with these furry, sticky thinks once they are off? The standard way of dealing with your skins is to stick them together by touching the tip and tails, then pressing together. This works fine most times. But what if its windy out, or you are in the heat of battle at one of the upcoming ski mountaineering races were a mis-fold could be costly? Clearly you need a fast and efficient folding technique to go with your flash new way of removing your skins.
I learnt this trick from friend Steve Romeo. Steve represented the US at the 3rd World Ski Mountaineering Champs in Italy in 2006, is a NZAC member and has made some very notable ski descents in the Teton mountains of Wyoming were he lives. Check out is web site-www.tetonat.com
I just use the centre fold of the skins as the start point, but if you want to make it even easier you can bust out a permanent marker and mark the centre line of your skins.
Damien Jackson is today’s model.

2008 World Ski Mountaineering Champs

Just got a e-mail from Yanick, one of the organisers, detailing the schedule of events for the 4th World Ski Mountaineering Championships to be help in Chablais-Portes du Soleil, Switzerland from February 23rd-1st March 2008.
The most interesting feature is the inclusion of a 2nd singles races. The standard 1600m vertical race is included, along with a longer 3000m vertical race. This bringing the total number of races to 5, in a week long event that will see the best ski mountaineering races in the world, including a team from NZ, doing battle.


Program for 4th Ski Mountaineering World Championship 2008
Chablais-Portes du Soleil, Switzerland
-Saturday 23rd of Feb. Team Welcome – Opening Ceremony
-Sunday 24th of Feb. Adult race: Individual Race (1650m vert)
Open Young (800m vert)
-Monday 25th of Feb Adult race: relay-race
Young race: relay-race
-Tuesday 26th of Feb Adult race: Team race (1950m vert)
Young race: Individual race (1250m vert)
-Wednesday 27th of Feb Day off
-Thursday 28th of Feb Adult race: Vertical race (880m vert, no down hill)
Young race: Vertical race (500m vert, no down hill)
-Friday 29th of Feb Adult race: Long distance Individual race (3000m vert)
Closing Ceremony with Gala dinner
-Saturday 01st March Team departure

If you want to see where it is, check out- www.champery.ch or www.portesdusoleil.com
The official web site of the 4th world champs is www.smwc2008.com although it won't be up and running until late August.

TRANSITIONS- As Easy As 1,2,3...Removing your skins

“There's more than one way to skin a cat” or in this case, de-skin a ski. The following is one such way and is more than anything a starting point for speeding up your transitions in a ski mountaineering race. This technique can be adapted to any situation (racing or a lazy day in the “slack country” for example) and in one form or another, to any type of gear - tele, fritsch/naxo or Dynafit binding.
A few key things to remember - as you come in to the transition point/summit, have your pole straps removed and poles in one hand (so you don’t get tangled up) and your shirt/jacket unzipped so you can stuff you skins easily. Whatever routine you adapt, make sure it is a routine and that you practice and perfect it. While most people will spend well over five minutes farting around folding skins, you should spend less than 20 seconds!
Jane Harper, winner of last years inaugural Temple Basin Randonnee Rally and the 2007 Asian Ski Mountaineering Champs takes us through today’s lesson.
Comments/ questions are welcome.

Skin To Win-The Climber Articel

After the Wilderness post a few days ago I remembered about the write up in The Climber that SkiMoNZ has in the latest winter issue. For those of you out there smart enough to be a New Zealand Alpine Club member you will have received a copy of The Climber a few weeks ago now. If you don’t have a copy, head down to your nearest book store and pick one up, or even better -join the NZAC and receive 4 issue’s a year of The Climber. Click HERE on how to become a NZAC member.
The article is titled “Skin To Win” and details the upcoming race series as well as having some pointers to make racing and more importantly,

your day to day ski touring more enjoyable. This latest issue is heavy on skiing (a good thing!)

and also includes an excellent article by Shane Orchard on ski mountaineering in the Aoraki Mt Cook area, which is well worth a read!

Top to bottom skiing at Temple Basin!
Hard to believe yes, but apart from one tiny section of walking, Damin managed to ski from the top of "Down Hill Buttress" to Temple tow shed a few days ago. His route down was via "Main Chute". Main chute is normally a big, wide open chute in normal snow years. So big and wide its generally not that interesting to ski, but in low snow years like this its a treat! Hardly filled in at all, its currently steep and narrow, like all good couloirs should be and is skiing really well with hard "grippy" snow.

SkiMoNZ in August issue of "Wilderness" magazine

Just got my hands on the latest issue of "Wilderness" and was stoked to see that the Black Diamond Ohau Backcountry Blast made the "5 Reasons to get outside in August"

The BD Blast is on the list with other events the Monteith's Beer and Wild Food Festival, Auckland City Volcanoes Challenge, NZO N-Duro Mountain Bike Race Series and the Mac Pac Tour de Tasman.

All and all, heaps of good "Reasons to get outside"!

Also worth a look is the excellent feature on Aoraki/Mt Cook and the 3D maps in the issue.

If you are keen to get your hands on the August issue of "Wilderness" then come along and enter in the Black Diamond Ohau Backcountry Blast on August 4th, the 1st 40 entry's get a free issue in their race pack!

Check out our home page-www.skimonz.com for more details.

MountainZ.co.nz/Temple Basin race clinic-14/15th July

Sally Martella hiking up to Down Hill basin, with Mt Rolleston in background.

Had a great weekend at Temple Basin for the MountainZ.co.nz Ski Mountaineering Race Clinic, with sunny skies and warm weather. Unfortunately there was not more snow, but despite this there was a good turn out.

We started Saturday night after dinner with some videos on ski mountaineering races. These manly looked at transitions (taking your skins off and putting them on as fast as possible).

On Sunday morning we hiked up to Down Hill and Gena started things off with showing every one the finer points of kick turns, then we worked on transitions. After a quick break we headed up to the ridge for a look. After lunch we re grouped and it was time for every one to put there new skills to the test with a quick relay race. We divided in to 3 teams of 3 and were off. The lead changed many times in a short race, but in the end Kath, John and myself took it out. I was just grateful John gave me a nice buffer on the Russian!

A big "thank you" to Temple Basin for hosting us and Glenn from MountainZ.co.nz for supplying such great prizes! Also Gena and Jane for helping me out and to every one that turned up. I look forward to seeing you at Ohau on August 4th!

If you missed out on being at Temple, or at one of the slide shows that we did in Q'town, Wanaka and Chch, or just want to see it again, you can check out the United States Ski Mountaineering Association web site at http://www.ussma.org/ for some good videos.