Newbie wax and snow question

[fisheater]

Dave Mann (Pinnah) from the Telewiki page described putting a harder wax over a warmer wax (or klister, which is more difficult)
The harder wax prevents sticking, but since it is a thin layer the snow crystals are able to gain grip into the softer wax, but do not stick to it, as the crystals are not penetrating the harder wax.

I do believe vigorous corking will create a hybrid wax.

I’m not sure Pinnah was correct, but I have used the method and it does work. I encourage any new kick waxer to read Pinnah’s waxing section. Of course I also recommend reading Lilcliffy’s waxing thread. Most of what I know about waxing came from those threads. The rest is the pearls I picked up from the rest of the guys here.
Almost forgot to mention @John Dee

[Stephen]

Ok, scratch the snow temp idea!

[RabbitEars]

Lol I just came here to ask the same question. Mine easily wiped off by hand. Glad to know it's normal.

[Stephen]

Yeah, as long as you are not feeling the skis drag, you should be good.
I think the other person was feeling a little bit of drag.
It just depends on which is more important to one, grip or glide, and where the comfort level is.

If you tried to ski on skis that had been waxed for an elite Nordic racer, you would say they had almost no grip.
And if they skied on your skis, they would say they were very draggy and slow.

That’s not any sort of negative judgement, just pointing out the difference between how much (actually how little) grip a pro skier needs compared to us recreational / backcountry skiers.

[RabbitEars]

Yeah, as long as you are not feeling the skis drag, you should be good.
I think the other person was feeling a little bit of drag.
It just depends on which is more important to one, grip or glide, and where the comfort level is.

If you tried to ski on skis that had been waxed for an elite Nordic racer, you would say they had almost no grip.
And if they skied on your skis, they would say they were very draggy and slow.

That’s not any sort of negative judgement, just pointing out the difference between how much (actually how little) grip a pro skier needs compared to us recreational / backcountry skiers.

This was my third outing on waxable skis. First time on my new Kongsvold. I decided to do a less is more approach to waxing today and the skis were very fast and I didn't notice any real drag like I have on my previous two trips. I took this photo before adding a little more wax as I didn't have quite enough to climb little sharp inclines.

[Stephen]

@RabbitEars, I assume the pictures are from up on Rabbit Ears?
I lived in Oak Creek and loved skiing that whole area.
Also once lived in a barn on 131 about a mile or so south of 131 and 40.
Also went up to the Flattops a lot.

[mca80]

This was my third outing on waxable skis. First time on my new Kongsvold.

Ha, today was my fifth time on waxable skis. What are your thoughts on the Kongsvold?

[mca80]

Went to different trail this morning, has had use all winter so compacted base but still several inches powder on top. Also ventured off the trail a bit--not quite as deep as yesterday, dog was in up to high on his legs but not up to belly. Just used polar. Worked fine.

[timpete]

I think others have answered the wax question - a little bit of light powder sticking to the kickwax zone when you pick up the ski is normal in these conditions. IMHO it's because the snow is so damn light, and I doubt it was inhibiting your glide, you would have felt it if so. Usually that type of thing just brushes right off in normal striding, but if you pick up the ski you'll usually see some fluff on the kick zone, which you need to brush off when bringing skis into the cabin.

There's no mistaking actual clumping/icing on the ski, you literally cannot move aside from stepping. It feels like you have crampons on your skis. Snow on snow has incredible friction. This typically happens right at freezing with fresh snow or, as happened to me recently, when you ski across a lake and go through insulated slush area by accident.

I was just skiing this weekend in NE Wisconsin, similar weather to you, and we were kicking on Swix green all weekend in fresh snow around 5 F.

FWIW, for the conditions you describe I use my Coleman's surplus 210 cm Asnes skis. Yes, the ones that are listed for $30 + shipping... They are the only ski I've owned where you can genuinely get into a kick and glide cadence on dry untransformed bottomless powder. They have this great high curved tip that is great for trailbreaking and keeps the ski from diving. But, herringboning up hills in this kind of powder is hard work, because the ski tips catch in the snow and you have to lift them high out of it. I think some people will just wax the entire ski with polar to avoid herringbone, I think. I'm typically going across flat terrain like tamarack bogs and that type of thing.

As a skiing-history tangent, I think that historically, very sparsely populated areas in North America with deep, light, powder did more snowshoeing than skiing when breaking trail. I don't think this was a coincidence. I'm sure in Nordic countries skiing was more useful because of speed downhill AND use on skier-tracked common routes where you could glide on packed snow.

(As others have noted, even a longer ski than 210 cm would be better. Some people use old-school wooden 220 cm + skis for this type of skiing. The kind people have on cabin walls. )

What I haven't found a good solution for, is the poling. Same as you, I have the wide leather baskets also, but they still plunge 12" + into the snow and you can't engage your upper body like most of us track skiers used to modern carbon poles are used to. This is where you just need to stride along and enjoy the beauty of the woods you are in, and use poles for balance. I suspect historically people didn't drive as much power through poles because they were bamboo.

[lowangle al]

I was out last week waxed up with blue thinking temps were low 20s. I drive 3 miles and temp drops to 11f, a green day.
I had no glide but stuck with it until I got to the top of my first run. I didn't have green wax so I just scraped some of the blue and corked it hard and took a run. It was an improvement but still not good. At the top I scraped again removeing as much as I could from the top 5 inches of kick zone and corked again. This time I corked it I used the corner edge and not the flat surface of the cork to get more psi of pressure. It made my glide acceptable for the downhill and the climb but was still slow for k&g, but doable. I did have polar with me but I didn't think to put some over the top of the blue but I wish I tried.

I can always tell when I have poor glide (when it's not obvious) because it makes my thighs unnaturally tired. Also, if you never miss a kick you might have more on then you need.