Climber on ascent skirting top of glacier's torn skin (6)
I believe the answer is:
agnail
'torn skin' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'climber on ascent skirting top of glacier's' is the wordplay.
'climber on' becomes 'liana' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'ascent' shows that the letters should be reversed in order (going up in down clue).
'skirting' indicates putting letters inside.
'top of' suggests taking the first letters.
The initial letter of 'glaciers' is 'g'.
'liana' backwards is 'anail'.
'anail' placed around 'g' is 'AGNAIL'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for agnail that I've seen before include "Torn skin" , "It may cause irritation to finger" , "tear on index?" .)