SKEATS™ Skin Cleats: Simplified Ski Crampons

The Patented Skeats™ skin cleats easily strap to the base of your boards to assist in uphill skinning on steep crusty slopes. They are 50% made in the USA; and 100% designed and tested in the Tetons! Simplified ski and splitboard crampons that fit in your pocket.  For back country skiing or mountaineering.  Use with skins for increased traction.

"I feel like the most useful tools are always the ones you have with you and I look forward to making the Skeats™ skin cleats a piece of gear that will live in my pack on every outing." --Stephan Bast

Skeats™ skin cleats are like cleats for your Splitboard or Touring Skis. They are super light, easy to pack, and quickly strap to the base of your skis or boards in seconds. The branded Voile straps are great backcountry tools.  The straps double as board straps and are extremely multi-functional. All plates and parts are easily interchangeable in the field.  

SKEATS™ Skin Cleats: Capabilities and Limitations

As you can see from the picture above your skin cleats will give you significant extra traction while skinning up the fall-line.

I hope that soon you will be out on the skin track and taking advantage of your extra traction.  As you begin to learn the capabilities and limitations of the skin cleats, please keep the following in mind: 

1)  Fewer switchbacks--The spikes on the cleats give your skins much greater grip and allow you to make skin tracks that do not require nearly as many switch backs.  Think of ascending the slope in an elongated and partial S, as opposed to a Z.  This should allow you to move more efficiently over slick terrain without side-hilling as much.  We have been rounding out our skin tracks to avoid side-hilling and to take a straighter line up the fall line.  

2)  No extra edge grip*-- (Only applies to Skeats™ Original and Skeats™ Glide Fins) The spikes do not give edge grip the way that ski crampons do.  So instead of trying to traverse or side-hill a super steep section, I try to keep my boards flat to the snow at all times to allow the spikes to grip.  Sometimes this requires semi-lateral movement with tips pointed up the fall line as much you feel comfortable.  DO NOT TRY TO SET YOUR EDGES AND TRAVERSE A STEEP SLOPE.  You will not find any extra grip this way.  In fact, edging on a steep slope will become more difficult because the plate puts you up 3mm off your edge underfoot.

Not to worry.  I found that I quickly adjusted my skinning technique to avoid annoying traverses across steep, icy slopes.  Instead I try to attack the slope more directly and keep my boards as flat as possible to set my spikes in the snow, and NOT my edges.

My ski partner and CAD designer, Cody Finke,  puts it this way:

"Whenever I encounter icy terrain, I want to move through it as efficiently as possible because the more steps I take in that type of terrain, the more likely I am to screw up and start sliding. The fewest steps of course would be picking a straight line up the terrain and not making any zig-zags. It is impossible to move safely this way with ski crampons, but Skeats™ skin cleats enable you to do this. 
a) because ski crampons bite into snow less when you put your risers up, the steeper the terrain gets, the worse the crampon performs. Therefore, they force me to cut several zig-zags and make dangerous kick turns in icy terrain. 
b) with ski crampons, the blades are all parallel to the direction of travel, they really only provide extra grip while traversing. Again, I do not want to make long traversing zig-zags through icy terrain, I want to get out of it. "

*Skeats™ Claws ADD on edge traction in addition to the standard added skin traction like the other models. Please see the Skeats™ Claws product page for detailed description.

SKEATS™ PATENT INFORMATION: US 9993717B2

WARNING: SKIING AND SPLITBOARDING ARE INHERENTLY DANGEROUS SPORTS. YOU ARE RESONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN ACTIONS AND DECISIONS. BEFORE USING OUR PROUDCTS, READ AND UNDERSTAND THE DETAILED USE INSTRUCTIONS, WANRINGS AND DISCLAIMERS.

Below:  Mounting Skeats™ Original skin cleat.  All components are interchangeable in the field!