How To Safely Descend On Climbing Skins When Ski Touring

The BIGGEST MISTAKE people make when skiing down on their skins is taking big strides. Descending with skins is not an easy thing to do. Avoiding an obstacle such as a dense patch of trees, a crevasse, or a gully, can be done if you know how to descend with your climbing skins. Add this to your touring skills arsenal! In this video, backcountry skiing expert, Rene-Martin Trudel from the Great Outdoors Learning Hub, is going to show you how to stop falling when going downhill with skins on your backcountry skis, splitboard, or telemark skis. Three important tips to safely descend a slope with climbing skins on your skis. 1- Lower your centre of gravity. 2- Lower your hands on your poles. 3- As you glide along on the snow, move your feet by taking small steps. Understand that the skins will not glide constantly. Sometimes, they start to glide and then suddenly stop. So be ready and aware! Feel your skis gliding to maintain your traversing speed. The BIGGEST MISTAKE people make when skiing down on their skins is taking big strides. This exposes you to unnecessary unbalances and energy loss. Don’t take long strides. Remember, small step + glide... A SECOND MISTAKE people make is bending the upper body when unbalanced. Keep your feet active, when an unbalance occurs, this will allow you to recover with a bigger counterbalancing forward step. The THIRD MISTAKE is leaning back while descending to avoid face-planting if the skins catch the snow or the terrain suddenly changes under the snow. Should you lose control, you'll probably fall on your butt, as soon as the glide resistance changes... and have fun getting up! FINALLY, conditions in the backcountry can vary. You need to judge the risk level. If the snow is hard-packed, the surface is iced, or if there is a risk for any dangerous situation, you might want to clip your boot buckles, switch your ski bindings into ski-mode, and even remove your skins and bootpack to descend. FULL RISK DISCLOSURE THIS VIDEO DOES NOT REPLACE THE NEED FOR AVALANCHE AWARENESS COURSES, WILDERNESS FIRST AID TRAINING, MOUNTAINEERING COURSES, AND THE NEED FOR A GUIDE. Backcountry skiing by definition is a non-organized, at your own risk activity. Gaining experience is invaluable and an online course cannot completely provide the required knowledge you need to guarantee your safety. Our goal is to make you a better, well-rounded backcountry traveller, a better teammate, and more educated skier. #skitouring #backcountry #skiing #bcski #backcountryskiing #skinning #climbingskins #skilife #greatoutdoors #skintracks #freeheel #spreadtelemark #alpinetouring #horspiste #pathofleastresistance #golh #golhtv #greatoutdoorslearninghub #kickturn #roundturn #skinning #goingdownhill #climbingskins #skilife #thegreatoutdoors 00:00 Introduction 00:15 Technique and Approach 01:12 Turning Around and Descending 01:44 Evaluating Terrain Risk 02:23 Small Strides, Hands in Front