My alarm woke me up at 5am yesterday and I was the only car in the lot at the top of Teton Pass, as the WYDOT plow driver cleared the 6-8” of new snow from the parking lot. It looked like I was going to be breaking trail in the dark and solo, so I took one last swig from the coffee cup before walking towards the north side of the road and the start of the Mount Glory bootpack. The trail breaking wasn’t so bad at first, but after a while, the old track disappeared under the growing wind-drifts and I soon found myself walking and wallowing through crotch deep powder.
Are Teton skiers ready for a skin track up Glory?
Now, I’m always keen to a good work-out and I’ve booted up some nice couloirs in uber deep snow before, although they usually are steep and narrow to warrant bootpacking, BUT…it was at this moment on the way to the top of Glory that I thought to myself, why the hell am I not on my skis and putting a skin track up this thing? Here I am with 115mm waisted skis on my back, adorned with the best bindings and climbing skins money can buy, the slope is plenty wide enough…so why am I bootpacking instead of skinning?
In the right conditions, bootpacking can be fast and efficient, but when there is 1-3′ of powder blocking your progress, it seems to me like skinning would be the better and more efficient mode of travel….no? With today’s super-fat skis, we can float over the snow quite easily, even when the snow density is in the single digits and quite blower. When bootpacking, we sink up to our crotch and have to high-step whenever the snow get’s deep, which just doesn’t seem very efficient.
Is it tradition, or backcountry ethics that keeps us from laying a nice steep skin-track up past the Jesus Rock, the Hillary Step, the Scoreboard and onto the summit ridge? Did Bill Briggs or Virginia Huidekoper at one point in time deem that there shall only be a bootpack to the top of Mount Glory? Do we do it so that all the bros and bras, with or without skinning equipment can also benefit from our effort? I don’t know myself, but I’m tempted to throw on the climbing skins next time I’m in the same situation. What about you?
Are Teton skiers ready for a skin-track up Glory?
(Please leave your answer in the comment section.)
A) Negative bro, yee shall always and forever boot pack Glory.
B) Sorry man, I’m a village rat/snowboarder and I ain’t gots no touring gear.
C) Whatever man, as long as I don’t have to break trail.
D) Skin track and bootpack, may they exist in perfect harmony.
E) Skin to win, and if you walk in my track I’ll slit your throat.
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hilarious steve!
D) I prefer to skin whenever possible, but that doesn’t mean that others shouldn’t be allowed to boot it if they want. As an added bonus to this sort of harmony I can indulge in my particular love for easily cruising by someone wallowing in waist deep snow, their head only coming up to my waist. When will they see the light?
E all the way! got your email. thanks steve
Postholing sucks, I’ll take skinning 99.99 times out of a hundred. But, between the hundreds of pounds of dog shit that would be in the track and the number of brobras that would posthole the track into oblivion, it is futile. Pistono would have to work overtime preventing fistfights.
I’ve hidden one in the trees before, and put one lower down in the 1st/2nd turn area.
Overall, Option B : it’s just an extension of the Vill, who gives a fck. Let them enjoy the scene and the dogshit and go get some untracked elsewhere. Lucky to live in a place where Glory doesn’t need to be an option.
dolph…nice little blog. i’m working on a proposal for a trip to norway in the spring…looks awesome.
I choose E! I thought D at first then my coffee kicked in and reality hit.
yeah chris! from a splitboarder no less.
Thanks Steve! If your looking for any intel or contacts in Norway just let me know.
E for me. And another thing, do Teton skiers urinate on the skin track the way Wasatch skiers do?
Another splitboarder for E. A bootpacker gets one chance to learn the ethic. After that, out come the knives!!!!!!!
E!
Who the fuck bootpacks? I remember thinking that the whole time I was going up Glory the last time. (long time ago….)
I just figured…when in Rome…..
glad to hear somebody’s thinking it over too. I thought I was the only one.
Wookie1974
What did you ski? How was it?
D) for me…boot to below til you get out of the first trees then diverge. Sometimes I bring my alpine setup and sometimes touring. Remember when there was the double black diamond “experts only” bootpack? Same idea for the skin without the attitude.
crawl, walk, bootpack, skin; evolution!
D) The first time I hiked Glory I remember wondering why I was not skinning. I started asking all of the people on the trail why it was not a skin track. They just kept wallowing through the snow and grunted that they did not know.
use a kite to climb glory! Much faster takes about 3 minutes! just need south wind.
Just imagine how glazed and blown out the track would be after the daily legions make their laps. In anything less then ideal snow, a skintrack could get real ugly real quick….then you have ten trillion gaper skin tracks drifting out into Twin…then some poor sap gets smoked by a meter thick slab after a yellow lab named Wilson fetches a stick his owner threw onto the Twin starting zone.
Maybe its best to keep ‘em coralled in the booter…?
Separation and alienation is the only way up glory…and is why I avoid it…
F) Create two skintracks.
one for ‘fast’ people
one for ‘slow people
Divide and conquer!!!!
F = Fail
my question is why the hell were you the only one on top of glory after 6-8" of new?? readers poll: a) J-holers getting soft, b) they knew no track was firmly in place, c) new shrubbery from BC just showed up, d) they forgot what snow looked like, e) randosteve has tamed avalanche dragon
??????
E Skin to win, if the angle allows it always skin!
Separation and Alienation….I like it!
please note first 7 words of post as answer to your question.
I remember bootpacking up to the top of Glory and wondering why I wasn’t skinning. But hey, I choose answer t)….todo depende.
I love using my patented crawl method when the snow gets steep hard and crusty. I hold my skis with the skins on by the bindings in my hands along with the poles while crawling up on my shins with only the bootpoints piercing the crust. This is always way faster than anybody with ski crampons because you go straight up and nor ski-crampon changeover.
good points by everyone. i could see a skin track maybe being during the winter months…but then moving to bootpack only as things firm up and get slick.
Wait just a minute. If the rando guys stop booting that means there won’t be any super slow hikers with their super light dynafit setups on the bootpack anymore, right? Well that’ll crush all the fun on Glory! Passing the weight weenies is one of the highlights of the bootpack.
Mark it A, dude!
Good arguments all. Gringo making me laugh as usual with the “Wilson the dog” comment. Hilarious!
If the scene on the south side is any indication, the track will quickly turn to shit with every gaper putting his own best spin on the track. Maybe we could flag it through the trees and encourage conformity. Riiiight!
I say “E”, nice idea but seems like it will never happen.
heavyskis…there is only one person i know that talks like that. do i smell a turtle coming on?
and derek…i think the answer to your question is…because it was a monday morning.
most early morning skiers work weekdays, and get after it with family or whatever on weekends…weekend warriors. they rest on monday…and then get back into the grove on tuesday for the rest of the week. this morning i was up early and saw the carnage at the lot just before 6am…and i could see at least 6 cars.
D/E
I am all for it as long as it does not cross the boot back. Also there is gonna be dog s$%# all over it because everyone and their mother brings their dog up there. ALL in all i say go for it.
I say that a skin track is appropriate when the snow is deep
I like to ski my big heavyweight skis with real bindings off Glory (unless I’m touring past it to the north) I consider Glory like hiking the headwall. Skins are for everywhere else.
Warmup for climbing Taylor via SE Ridge?
Well there was a time long ago when we used to put a wax a track up Glory. You alwayshad to break trail in the winter because nobody went up there till spring. Then there was an era when stick on skins became available and the skin track ruled. It was useless though when the hoards arrived in the backcountry in the mid 80′s and the track being south facing would get icy and glazed. Hence the boot pack for the masses. Only the first few suffer and most of those that follow are oblivious of the effort that went into the trail they walk upon.
norml…that is good stuff. pretty wild to think how things have changed and it’s no wonder more people don’t get smoked by avalanches up there these days.
Earlier this fall, my lovely wife told me that she would climb glory with me more if we can skin it. Naturally I have been incentivized to break a skinner. If any of you see a skinner left of the boot, it was probably a date-type outing.
The track is in. I climbed it twice in the dark tonite. Feel free to boot in it but it won’t make much sense… Oh yeah, if you get shit on your skins, it was likely my dog Ginger… GOOD DOG!
classic nate. someone FB’d me at 5pm today, telling me that someone was headed to the north side of the pass…with their skins on. glad you mad it happen…let’s get out some this year.
Fresh is fresh dude. what’s the problem man….got a case of the monday’s……
just kidding….monday’s rock.
I like the directness and absolute simplicity of the bootpack. I’ve always wondered why no one skinned though.
Way to keep it real Nate!
E. Whatever makes the boat float
Skin until there is a booter. Make em work for it Steve.