Contemplating Skimo Racing?

Tom Diegel wrote a humorous, perhaps persuasive, article for those contemplating ski mountaineering racing — or appalled at the thought — on his blog: T-Dawg Speaks: Is Skimo as Silly as it Seems?

Here is an excerpt: 

You have probably seen them:  the skinny guys wearing the neon yellow boots with almost no buckles, carrying too-long poles and tiny packs, on kid-sized skis with toy bindings…..and going past you remarkably fast up skin tracks.  “Ah”  you think, as you step aside to let them swish past.   “Skimo guy.  Dork!" 

But perhaps there’s an inkling roaming in the back of your mind, that you almost dare not acknowledge:  “Boy, being able to go uphill that fast and get that much more vert in any given outing would be nice, and I’ve heard that that silly light gear isn’t all that bad?  And if I did a hard effort once a week in those weird nighttime “races” I’ve heard about, maybe I’d be stronger on the weekends when I need to give’er breaking trail all day?”  But those thoughts pass, and you put your head back down to stare at your 20 pound package of fat skis with their fat skins, big boots, and burly bindings and unzip the legs of your huge goretex pants as you recommence slowly shuffling up the skin track, hoping to get to the top before SkimoBoy catches you on his second lap.   But what of it?  Is “backcountry ski racing” really that dorky?  Is it possible to actually ski on that gear?  Is it worth my time at all to charge around a dimly lit ski resort at night with other idiots marching up and skitching down in an anaerobic fog?

In a word... Yes!

Read more at Is Skimo as silly as it seems?