Aidan Whitelaw track setting. Photo: Alex Shafer
As old as time—how steep, or not steep, to set the skin track? In this Op-Ed, it seems Tahoe might have a too-steep problem.
If you’ve spent any time walking uphill on skis in the Tahoe Basin, you’ve likely experienced the following: backsliding on a freshly set skin track, a desperate pole plant at a blown-out kick turn, the creeping realization that ski crampons might be your only hope of topping out. It’s a familiar struggle, and the culprit is always the same. Tahoe, your skin tracks are too steep.
Pointing out the obvious—the excessive pitch of our winter trails—will surely provoke a familiar response from seasoned touring enthusiasts: “If the skin track is too steep, set your own.” To be clear, that is the correct answer. But while I do reset tracks from time to time, there are plenty of situations where cutting a second track isn’t just a hassle—it’s counterproductive for the entire ski community.
Two parallel tracks—one reasonable, one too steep—will inevitably cross each other and reduce the usability of both tracks where they intersect. If the tracks are too far apart, the tracks consume more untouched snow, reducing available snow for everyone.
New and novice backcountry skiers—of which there are plenty in Tahoe—often cannot set better tracks due to a lack of fitness, skill, and navigational awareness. And let’s be honest, even the capable don’t always have the time or energy to re-cut a proper skin track when the best descents have already been claimed by those who got there first.
Finally, there’s an unspoken social contract between the track-setter and those who follow. Setters bear the effort of breaking trail through deep snow, for which they are rewarded with fresh turns and the privilege of curating the experience for everyone behind them. The first one up gets to dictate the experience for the rest. Simply setting a new track when one already exists sidesteps their vision and upsets the dynamic.
While poorly set skin tracks surely exist worldwide, I’ve long suspected that the Tahoe Basin is a particularly egregious offender. I confirmed that suspicion after a trip to Chamonix, France, where the skin tracks were perfectly graded—not too steep, not too shallow, just right. Upon my return home to a snow-starved Tahoe, I set out with a partner for a midweek lap up a popular spot after a recent storm. Despite being only hours old, the skin track was horrendous—too steep and inconsistent, meandering over rocks and trees unnecessarily while ignoring natural benches that would have facilitated smooth turns. Despite being only hours old, the track was already an unpleasant, inefficient mess, even for experienced skiers.
This brings me to the inevitable second response from those seasoned backcountry skiers: “If it’s too steep, you’re too weak.” To this, I say they are demonstrably wrong. I make no claim to being the strongest skier in the basin, but I’ve skied with enough partners and in enough different regions to know that it’s not my fitness or technique that makes me struggle with these poorly established tracks. Take a trip to the Wasatch, the Pacific Northwest, Colorado, or British Columbia, and you’ll see that there’s simply a better way. While overly steep tracks certainly exist elsewhere, they seem far less common than in Tahoe.
For the skeptics, let me be clear: gradual, consistent skin tracks are objectively better. They’re less likely to blow out at kick turns–leaving followers wanting ice tools just to switch directions. They allow for more efficient, energy-saving strides uphill. Most importantly, they enable more skiing. When you arrive at the top feeling less exhausted, you can do more laps and have more fun. And don’t just take my word for it—the late, great mountain guide Rob Coppolillo wrote in The Ski Guide Manual: “As mountain guides, we often take first-timers or deskbound riders into the backcountry. The combination of a level 12- to 14-degree skin track (meaning feet flat and side by side, not angled on the slope), a short stride and an easy pace takes much of the pain out of a long climb for a less-fit guest.” The same principle applies to even the strongest mountain athletes. A 14-degree skin track gets everyone to the top in better shape, ready for more skiing. In fact, I can’t recall a single experienced partner ever wishing for a 15-degree+ skin track.
So, why is Tahoe uniquely afflicted by this problem? My recent time in Chamonix, the birthplace of mountain sports and steep skiing, provided a likely answer: guide culture. Or, more accurately, the lack thereof in Tahoe. In Europe, there’s a strong ski guide presence, and in popular areas, guides often set the tracks. They know from experience and formal training to set skin tracks at a reasonable incline. This means that new backcountry skiers, whether guided or not, spend their first few seasons skinning well-set tracks before they ever have the opportunity to set their own. Naturally, when the time comes, they replicate what they’ve experienced and set reasonable skin tracks themselves. When steep and inefficient skin tracks are encountered, guides are obliged to set a more moderate incline for their guests, sending a clear signal to the steep setter—you’ve done it wrong.
Contrast that with the Tahoe Basin. If you’re a first-year backcountry skier, you’ll inevitably encounter too-steep skin tracks in popular zones. Maybe you find them unpleasant, but that’s just how it is. Eventually, with experience, when you find yourself setting the track, you set it too steep. And thus, like a plague—or perhaps more accurately, a hereditary condition—steep skin tracks are passed down from skier to skier.
I don’t believe most offenders set steep skin tracks intentionally. I think most would agree that shallower tracks are ideal. But setting a skin track is hard work, and when you’re breaking trail through fresh snow, a steeper track feels more efficient. Simple math suggests that cutting a steep direct line to the top requires moving through less fresh snow. The problem is that what feels efficient in the moment creates an unpleasant experience for everyone who follows.
Another factor is modern boot and binding designs. More novice skiers are using crossover boots—boots designed for both resort and backcountry use—which have a limited range of motion, especially in forward flex. To compensate, binding manufacturers have added higher heel risers, which allow skiers to stand more upright on steeper terrain. The result: skiers use stiletto-high risers and set tracks to match.
So, what can we do? The first step is awareness. If you don’t think Tahoe’s skin tracks are too steep, you might be part of the problem. Next time you’re breaking trail, ask yourself: “Am I setting this too steep?” Consider skipping the riser, especially if you have a boot with good range of motion. If you do use a riser, opt for the lower setting rather than the highest lift your bindings allow.
Kick turns also deserve attention. If you’re making a turn on a steep section, your instinct will be to start the next track at the same steep angle. Instead, take a step down six to eight inches before starting the new leg—this preserves the integrity of the turn and prevents the track from blowing out. Also, when setting a meandering track look for natural benches in the terrain (up slope of a rock, below a tree) even slight undulations in the terrain can decrease the slope angle and make kick turns much easier.
Finally, hold your partners accountable. If you’re lucky enough to be following a friend who’s volunteered to break trail, appreciate their effort—but don’t be afraid to suggest a shallower angle. A small correction now leads to a better experience for everyone.
While we’re powerless to control the snow, the angles of our tracks are susceptible to our efforts. A well-set skin track is a craft, an art form as much as the squiggles we leave on the way down. So next time you’re out front, leave something better for those behind. Everyone else will thank you.
Totally agree. Have experienced it.
It is believed Emerald Bay gets its beautiful hue from the tears of vanquished skinners.
That’s a lot of green-hued tears and a very funny comment.
This comes across as super patronizing. It’s one thing to read guidelines in a book, quite another to break trail through 3+ ft of bottomless pow through complex terrain for 3k ft of vert.
– There’s never been a higher percentage of people getting into the sport via a guide, whether through an intro to backcountry course and / or an AIARE 1. What’s different post pandemic is the sheer number of new people and the fact that most come from a primarily resort skiing background instead of a mountaineering background.
– Almost everyone out touring knows what a good skin track looks like, the same way everyone knows what a good realist painting looks like. But they aren’t able to reliably make it happen until they get years of practice navigating off trail, reading terrain, and knowing how kick turns and other track features will end up looking when you put them in different types and depths of snow. And that’s assuming they already have the insane uphill fitness to be able to break trail in bottomless snow and still have plenty of brain cells left to manage all of the previous.
– Even if you are an expert at putting in an elegant skinner, it’s impossible to reliably onsite one in new to you, complex terrain. The more consistent above treeline slopes common in the Alps are a completely different ballgame from the densely treed slopes with lots of benches, ridges, and other small features found around Tahoe. Over time you can learn the good routes through this terrain but your first time on a slope its easy to end up in a spot where too steep or too shallow is the only option to continue. Tahoe has always been a tourist destination and often the generally bad tracks are put in by out of towners.
– If you are following someone who is breaking trail, the only non-asshole thing to say to them is to politely offer to take over. Think it could be done better? Don’t complain about their work, show them better work. On more than one occasion I’ve seen advanced beginners who have a very strong idea of what the track should look like be given the opportunity to put their ideas into practice but be unable to substitute that AVA turn on the less steep bench for the kick turn they swear isn’t necessary. They’re bringing advice from a boot-top pow day to a bottomless day and it just doesn’t hold up.
– The only way people get better at making skin tracks is to practice and that means they make bad skin tracks for a while but beta-spraying them doesn’t help anything. If anything it just pushes them to opt for easier to skin terrain with more consistent pitch and less trees which is usually the best ski terrain and the worst possible outcome overall.
Have you tried entertaining your ski partner by poking fun at the terrible skin track you’re on? If you aren’t going to put in a better track yourself it’s really the most productive way to handle it.
I don’t feel like this is patronizing. When I started BC skiing 15+ years ago no one I knew said a word about the skin track angle. Mostly that was because no one I knew had ever skied with a guide, or had any formal training. And we were doing relatively short days where the exhaustion of a single climb didn’t really matter. Over the years, the concept of shallower skin track angles sort of became more self-apparent, but it really wasn’t until I got Rob’s book that it clicked for me. Then I skied with a guide a few times, and it made even more sense.
Now I probably quote Rob nearly every time I go out and back it up with the guide on multi day trip perspective. It’s an easy and non-confrontational way to have a discussion and bring the group to a more consistent skin track angle strategy.
The thing is, you really need to experience a good skin track to understand how bad the steep ones are. We ski a lot of lower elevation brushy terrain that forces occasional awkwardly steep moves or other tricks you wouldn’t ordinarily choose to do. But when you can put in that nice 13 degree track that uses the terrain and avoids kick turns, man that’s magic. So yes, put in a better one, but having a conversation and making a goal for better group tracks is the best long term strategy.
The way I see it, putting in a good track is a service to the community who will use the track until the next storm. Put in a nice track that is useable as it becomes firm or crusty and it minimizes the need for many tracks marring the snowscape.
No one is obligated to perform community service. If I am working, it is both fun and my job to make sure the skin track is workable (at worst) and pleasant (at best) for my clients. Recreating, I usually have a bit more tolerance for a steep or poorly done track, depending on the conditions.
I often get a good chuckle out of seeing the early morning efforts of a certain Teton local, who has a talent for improbably steep and direct tracks.
All this being said, I think THR is a great place to educate and discuss skin track practices. I certainly agree with Barry that behind the track setter is not the correct location for airing these grievances.
Putting in a good track shows that you know what you’re doing rather than being a hack. Plain and simple.
Barry, I agree with your point that it’s easier to recognize a good track than set one.
At the same time I thought this article was a good call for everyone to try and do better.
Here is another resource:
https://gearysguiding.com/art-of-up-tracking-handbook/