What are climbing skins (or skins)?
Climbing skins are long textured pieces of fabric that are attached to the bottom of the skis and provide enough friction for a skier to climb rather steep hills. Once upon a time, skins were actually made from seal pelts (thus the name), but now they are made from mohair or nylon. The fabrics have a dense mat of directional “fur” that prevents the skier from slipping backwards but still slide forward. Using skins, you can walk up amazingly steep trails. Skins are attached to skis by two different systems. The first system is a mechanical system of straps. The second system is a special type of glue where the ski-side of the skin is coated with an adhesive which sticks to the base of the ski. The mechanical system is relatively carefree, but the straps interfere with ski edges, and it does not climb as well as the glue system. The glue system requires the ski base to be fairly clean, dry and free of sticky wax. The tip of the skin has a loop which goes over the ski tip; usually there i
