Pomoca Climb Pro Mohair Climbing Skins Review

Pomoca Climb Pro Mohair Climbing Skins Review. Skis and ski boots get all the press and glamor, but if you’re a backcountry skier, skins are almost as important as the skis and boots. You can waste a lot of energy if you’re skin slips on steep up tracks, or doesn’t glide well. And, you can waste a lot of time if your skin keeps falling off your ski.

To perform well, skins have to do the following:

• stick to your ski until you’re ready to pull them off
• not so sticky that you can’t pull them off the ski while your ski is still on
• not so sticky that you can’t pull them apart without tearing your rotator cuff
• glide well on the skin track; this is a subtle thing but can waste a LOT of energy if it’s not there
• can stick to a steep skin track
• do all of the above for at least 100 days

Until about eight years ago, I’d never heard of Pomoca climbing skins. The only skins I’d seen in ski shops were Black Diamond and G3. I first learned about Pomoca when I bought Dynafit skins to go with my new Dynafit Manaslu skis. The Dynafit skins glide well, climb well, stick to your skis, and are pretty easy to pull apart. Pomoca makes Dynafit skins.

Last year, I got a new pair of DPS Wailer Tour 106 skis and needed skins. I didn’t even consider Black Diamond Glidelite skins. They have fantastic glide, but are very difficult to pull apart and to pull off the ski. Because I had liked the Dynafit skins, I bought a pair of Pomoca Climb Pro S-Glide Climbing Skins. Unfortunately, they glided liked a piece of carpet rather than a climbing skin (the glide improves the more you use them).

The glide was so bad, I bought a pair of Pomoca Climb Pro Mohair skins to replace the Climb Pro S-Glide skins. They had much better glide and were a little easier to fold and put in my jacket. I have about 40 days on them. Like most skins, the glide gets better the more you use them.

What I Like About the Pomoca Climb Pro Mohair

• They reliably stick to my skis in even the coldest temperatures.
• I can pull them off with my ski still on by ripping from the tail: I had to use them about five times before I could pull them off effortlessly.
• I can pull them apart after folding them. While it’s not effortless to pull them apart, it’s reasonable and it gets easier the more I use them.
• They glide well. Much better than the Pomoca Climb Pro S-Glide
• They climb well. They don’t climb as well the Cimb Pro S-Glide, but they are more than adequate to get up steep skin tracks.

What I Don’t Like About the Pomoca Climb Pro Mohair

• The tail attachment clip is very easy to tighten but almost impossible to loosen. I thought there might be some trick to it so I scoured the internet for some instructions that would show me the trick. Apparently there is no trick. If you tighten the attachment too far, you’ll spend 15 minutes trying to loosen it about a 1/4 inch. I can’t imagine making this adjustment in the backcountry on a bitter cold day.
• The tip attachment uses a bail that snaps into a plastic track. It would be pretty easy to flip the bail out of the track while ripping the skin off. Several times after ripping my skin off, I noticed that the bail was halfway out of the track. And the bail is white, so if you flick it off into deep powder, good luck finding it.

In order to prevent loosing one of my skin bails in deep powder, I stuck a strip of gorilla tape over the opening in the plastic tip.

Bottom Line

I recommend these skins. They glide well, climb well, and are sticky enough to stay on your skis, but not so sticky that they are difficult to pull off your skis or pull apart.