warm wet snow: kicker skins vs soft kick wax (vs scales)

[lilcliffy]

Did some fantabulous spring touring up in Howard Brook on Skedaddle Ridge last weekend- incredible xcd skiing through spectacular hardwood glades.
Snow in the forest was soft and wet on top over a metre of dense base.
Snow out in the open and fields was corn.
5C in the afternoon and sunny.

Took my Falketind 62 and started out on mohair kicker skins. Taking off the skins to rip downhill starting getting old...
So I decided to go for soft kick wax (which I try to avoid as skin adhesive dont like it!)

Started with Violet Special- superb glide- not enough grip to climb a mole hill.
Put Red-Silver on top- superb glide- decent grip- AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[lowangle al]

I've had good luck with the red/silver this winter at temps up to about 40F. I also found that it also worked on refrozen snow without much drag and it seemed to stay on.

[fisheater]

Gareth, I am very happy with red/silver in similar conditions. My biggest complaint is I’m using it mid-winter!

[lowangle al]

Gareth, I am very happy with red/silver in similar conditions. My biggest complaint is I’m using it mid-winter!

If you're lucky enough to be skiing at all.

[lilcliffy]

Finding some limitations to very soft kick wax (e.g. red-silver) this week as I have been skiing close to the homestead on trails and through mixedwood. There is alot of conifer debris on the snow (as compared to open hardwood glades) following some strong wind this week. All of those twigs and conifer needles are sticking to the soft wax (not as bad as klister- but bad enough). In fact I now have enough debris sticking to the soft wax that the mohair kicker skins are performing better.

On warm wet snow, the soft kick wax is definitely faster, but the mohair kicker skin is more versatile and utilitarian.

[Musk Ox]

We've been using our skins a lot for the last few days. The temperatures have been wild, from -5° when we got out of the car to, I don't know, maybe 1° when the sun came out. We went up to 490 metres where there was deep fresh powder yesterday, with heavy wet snow down in the trees, and have done some fair distance I suppose on everything from hard and bumpy trails with blown fresh snow to thawing fresh snow over the last few days.

Two thumbs up for the skins. My narrow mohair is really pretty zippy now.

I prefer the red wax, I have to say, but the skins are so perfect for particular combinations of fluctuating temperatures and climbing hills.

[lilcliffy]

So grip wax and scales completely failed yesterday!

We got 40cm of wet, heavy soft snow in a storm on Thursday-Friday.
Starting out I was determined to use red-silver kick wax- it ended up being totally useless- ZERO grip.
I then moved to my waxless-scaled skis- a bit better- still not enough grip to climb a mole hill. Even my wide scaled Kom wasn't enough to climb in that stuff.
The answer? Kicker skins. They were amazing. Good grip and fantastic glide. I absolutely crushed 25kms of woodsy-hilly trail skiing on Friday afternoon in that deep wet stuff.
Yesterday we went up to XCD heaven in Howard Brook and had the same snow conditions. Used kicker skins for climbing and XC skiing and took them off for downhill rips.

Very soft kick wax works great on more consolidated and refrozen/transformed warm snow. (Similar to klister really.)

[lilcliffy]

I have added "vs scales" to this thread.

Although- when it works- I can get better performance from soft grip wax than scales-
there is no question that scales can be excellent when they grip well and the advantage of not having to put on and pull-off skins for low vertical downhill-oriented skiing is clear.

Regardless- at least in my local BC- there are just waaay to many late-winter/spring snow conditions were neither soft grip wax nor scales will do it and having a kicker skin is the ticket- especially for covering distance.
I have experienced breathtaking spectacular BC hill touring this weekend- that would have been terrible without a set of mohair kicker skins!!