The first time I skinned up a peaceful valley outside Hemu, I understood touring instantly and then made every beginner mistake in the book. The climbing skin, that fuzzy strip you glue to the base of your ski, is the unglamorous hero of backcountry skiing in Xinjiang, where lifts are few and the quiet powder bowls reward people who walk. Here is what I wish someone had told me.
Mohair, nylon, or mix
Mohair (goat wool) glides better on the flat and glides uphill, so you cover ground with less sweat, but it wears faster and is pricier. Nylon grips harder, climbs steep icy tracks without slipping, and shrugs off abuse, but it is draggy on the flats. A mohair-nylon mix is the common compromise and what I tour on now around Altay. If you are mostly on moderate forest roads, nylon is fine and cheaper; if you link long valley traverses, pay for the mix. The touring intro lays out the whole gear picture before you buy.
Fit and the tip/tail clip
Skins must match your ski width within a few millimetres. Too narrow and snow packs under the edge; too wide and the skin curls and rips off. Most modern skins are trim-to-fit with a metal edge. The tip loop should sit cleanly in the nose notch and the tail clip should be snug but not so tight you fight it with cold fingers. I learned to practise fitting them in the warm before a cold morning in the backcountry touring guide made clear how exposed you are when something fails up high.
Glue in Xinjiang cold
This is the part that bites visitors. Skin glue stiffens below minus-15 and can roll off the base mid-track. Two habits keep me safe: store skins glued-to-glued (folded sticky side together) in a warm-ish pack pocket, and carry a roll of emergency skin wax or a skipass strap as a backup if the tail lets go. If the glue ices, do not peel it with bare hands; warm it against your jacket. On a hut trip the hut-to-hut piece covers the daily skin routine that keeps glue alive for a week.
The kick-turn nobody practises
You will need to turn around on a narrow switchback, and on a 30-degree slope with skins on, the kick-turn is where beginners fall. Lift the uphill ski, pivot it 180 degrees onto its uphill edge, plant it, then bring the other ski around. Practise on a flat car park first. I once tried to sideslip a switchback instead and spent ten minutes climbing back up. It is the single most useful skill after putting the skins on.
Wax and the glide zone
Keep the exposed tip and tail of your base waxed; the skin only covers the middle, and an un-waxed tip drags on every stride. Red kick wax is irrelevant here, you are not striding like a racer, but a clean glide zone under the skin ends makes the flats bearable. Rental touring kits in Xinjiang sometimes arrive with tired glue, so inspect before you commit to a big day.
Safety context
Skins get you up; they do not keep you safe coming down. Tour only with a beacon, shovel, and probe once you leave marked terrain, and never alone on an unfamiliar Xinjiang face. The off-piste guide is required reading before you step beyond the resort boundary, and a skin failure is exactly the moment people get into trouble up high.
Bottom line
Climbing skins turn a chairlift holiday into a real mountain day, and Xinjiang’s quiet valleys are built for it. Buy a mohair mix sized to your ski, baby the glue in the cold, learn the kick-turn on flat ground, and treat the skin as part of a full safety plan. The resort category lists the hills where you can practise before the backcountry.
Skins for the splitboard crowd
If you ride a splitboard rather than skis, the logic is the same but the tip fix differs: split skins clip to a nose loop and a tail clip built into the board, and a centre split means you trim them as two halves. The glue care in the cold is identical, and the kick-turn becomes a board flip, which is its own awkward dance worth practising on flat ground. Xinjiang’s mellow northern valleys are forgiving places to learn; I would not attempt a first split tour on a steep Altay face. The hut-to-hut write-up assumes you already have the skin routine down.
Reading a set track
On popular Xinjiang touring routes near Hemu or the Altay fringe, a skin track is already packed by locals, and following it is both polite and safer than breaking your own line through unknown snow. Stay to the uphill side of the track when a skier descends past you, and step fully off if you stop, so the next person does not climb into your skis. A track is a shared resource; treating it that way is most of the etiquette. The off-piste guide covers the boundary and terrain judgement that a track alone will not teach you.
Stripping and storing at day’s end
At the top, peel skins tail-first, fold glue-to-glue, and stow them in the pack before the descent, because fumbling a sticky skin with cold hands at the lip of a cornice is how people lose gear and patience. At the hut, dry them flat, never on a direct heater, and check the tip loop for snow packed in the notch. A skin looked after for a week stays trustworthy; a skin stuffed wet into a pack grows mould and loses glue by the third day. The routine is dull, and that is exactly why it matters: touring in Xinjiang rewards the boring habits, not the brave ones, and a dead skin on a remote valley is a long walk you did not plan for.
Trust the skin, trust the plan
A touring day lives or dies on two boring things: skins that stick and a plan you actually follow. I write the exit and the turn-around time on my pole before I start, because cold and fatigue erase good intentions, and a skin failure mid-valley is survivable only if you already know how to get out. Xinjiang’s quiet northern valleys tempt you to ‘just one more ridge,’ and that is exactly where people get benighted. The skin earns the climb; the plan earns the safe descent. Respect both, and touring opens a side of the region the lifts never show, a silence worth the glue and the kick-turns a hundred times over.
At the end of a touring day the skin is the unsung hero you barely noticed, which is exactly how good gear should feel. Buy a mohair mix sized to your ski, baby the glue in the cold, learn the kick-turn on flat ground, and follow the plan you wrote before you started. Do those dull things and Xinjiang’s quiet valleys open up, silent and white, in a way the lifts never show. The skin earns the climb; the plan earns the safe way down.
Quick checklist for the skins
- Mohair-nylon mix sized to your ski width within a few mm.
- Store glue-to-glue in a warm pack pocket; carry emergency skin wax.
- Practise the kick-turn on flat ground before any slope.
- Peel tail-first at the top; dry flat at the hut, never on direct heat.
- Tour with beacon, shovel, probe beyond marked terrain, never alone.
If I were sending a first-time tourer up a Xinjiang valley, I would say: respect the skin like it is the only thing between you and a long walk, because it is. Buy the right mix, keep the glue alive in the cold, learn the kick-turn where falling is funny, and never, ever go beyond the trees alone. The quiet bowls are the prize, but the boring habits are the price, and the skier who pays them gets the silence; the one who skips them gets the walk. That trade is the whole sport, and Xinjiang is a fine, forgiving place to learn it if you are humble.