Splitboard Skin Length Calculator for Touring Skins

The variables is different when sizing touring skins for a splitboard, which most don’t consider. This happens until you get to the first steep pitch of the day when you find yourself dragging, slipping, or just not feeling right about it.

Enter your board and hardware specs, and calculator will do the rest. Knowing what the numbers mean is the difference between ascending smoothly vs. Getting frustrated.

How to Size Your Splitboard Skins

But a splitboard isn’t a ski and can’t be measured end-to-end. Typicaly there’s some sort of raised part on the nose of the splitboard that juts out over the base. Adding adhesive will create extra drag that fight you with every step. Ideally, you’ll want to make sure the adhesive doesn’t go too far onto the board. You don’t want it to cause the board to lift off the snow before skin ends.

The tail is trickier due to the clip system. A lot of people uses adjustable straps as opposed to fixed clips. In this case, extra material beyond the bottom coverage must feed into the adjuster. If you cut right to the board’s edge, then there’s no wiggle room when tightening the strap in gusty weather. This is why you must allow extra space for tail hardware.

A big difference comes based off the material selection. Nylon skins hold well on ice and are heavier; however, nylon doesn’t stretch. The pure mohair packs down and glides very nicely while feeling more twitchy on hard snow. In addition, the mohair stretch out a bit over time. Many people don’t account for this material characteristic in determining how long to make a skin. When purchasing pure mohair for a long tour, we recommend adding a little stretch allowance to your calculation so that skin won’t get too short after several weeks of cold weather tours. You’ll avoid having the skin peel at the tail.

The other common problem is width. Traditional alpine skis are typically narrower than splitboards. When buying skins, be aware of how much edge is exposed. Snow will sneak into that area and freeze the skin to your board. Ideally, they should be wide enough to cut flush with your sidewalls, but not expose bottom of your base edge. The chart on this page provides recommended widths based off your board’s waist measurements. For example, if you ride a wide powder shape, 70mm skins will never fit correctly. You must factor in the additional material needed to fully cover that surface area.

You need a sharp knife and some patience. Never trim when the skin is still stiff and cold. Trim in a warm area where the glue is soft and flexible. The first thing I would of do is mount the tip attachment. Make sure it’s snugly positioned behind the rise of the nose without affecting profile of the board. Smooth the skin down towards the tail to eliminate air bubbles. Air bubbles will cause it to peel off too soon. Once everything is taut and centered, then trim away excess length. If you’re not sure how well the clips will fit leave yourself a centimeter or two of buffer. It’s far easier to cut more material off than to try and glue a new piece on in the backcountry.

The numbers make a difference in touring Having all of this dialed in makes for a vastly different tour. You no longer think about drag, only about dropping. You can forget about your skin when it’s fit properly; it simply vanishes underfoot. Every time you take a kick turn, you get the reward from the time spent double-checking clearance and range on clips. This translates into working with versus against your gear.