See topic “Help needed for ski choice for solo pulka trip West-Greenland”
This is my first long trip with cross country ski’s (lots of alpine ski experience, almost no XC experience) and with your collective help Alfa Polar boots - Xplore binding and Asnes Combat Nato Spesial became the gear choice. Consider this feedback from someone with virtually nil experience, please interpret my comments within this context.
The hike: 9 days, 7 nights in tent, 1 in hut. Temperatures between -10 and -31 Celsius (in tent temperatures excluding windchill). Hopefully the pics will give you a good idea.
Mostly old snow, but light dustings of new snow on many days as well.
1/ Asnes Polar boots: very warm, but with quite a lot of foot movement, which caused my VBL socks to slip down, necessitating 2-hourly boot removal - sock repositioning. Except for this inconvenience, I was very happy with this choice
2/ the Xplore binding: comfortable and natural movement for a newbie. My only gripe is that I was never very sure when putting them on that the ski’s had clicked in. I often needed 2-3 tries. A more positive feedback of the ski being locked in would be more reassuring.
3/ the Asnes Combat Nato. In one word: phenomenal! I felt in control, they held course, no sliding or floppiness. Fixed a nylon X-skin at the start and never took it off. Now I must admit that on very steep climbs, rather than fixing a full length skin (had multiple options with me), I would simply remove my ski’s and slip on my trusted microspikes. For me this was faster change and a known quantity. In hindsight I should have tried, but in the flow of the hike and with the heavy pulk, I tend to stick with what works (also for clothing choices, etc…)
Thanks again for all your help!
