DB I agree.
That said however, I've seen times when I my local buds were able to talk 200 miles, of a morning, into the San Antonino area and we all agreed...it was likely short skip...and higher angled lobes were working our signals higher into the sky.
The question is what is the cause of the "short skip" you are referring to. I could be wrong, but if it is early enough in the morning I would think it is more likely "ducting" than "short skip". Ducting does happen at upper HF frequencies, and is more than capable of contacts of such ranges at said frequencies, and would be more reliant on lower angled RF than higher angled RF. In the end I guess they would both have similar effects from the operators perspective...
The DB