Complete skiing. Near perfect continuity between flats, uphills and downhills.

[Nick BC]

You’ve got to wax them. BD Glopstopper or any glide wax. Crayon it on cold then a quick three passes with a medium iron.

[Stephen]

@FourthCoast, I see you did wax the skins. I’m no expert here…
On my skins, I have used the wax @Nick BC mentioned.
I have no idea if it has magic quality’s that All Temp glide wax does not.
I have also tended to put on more than one coat — it seems to really soak in.

Were the ski / skins warm from the house when you put them on the snow?
That could / would cause a problem (melt / freeze).

Also, it’s been my experience that skins need some run in time to sort of smooth out the hairs and improve glide.
BUT, the nylon X-Skins I have have MUCH less glide than the mohair.

It does sound like somewhat challenging conditions for a trial run.

That’s all I can offer…

[Woodserson]

Ooof. Wet clumpy snow. New nylon skins. I feel your pain in my heart.

Were you using skins for fun? Swix Red Special would've been a good wax maybe?

Think of all the leg muscles and character building you're doing. Hunk

[Stephen]

Swix Red Special would've been a good wax maybe?

ON the skins, or INSTEAD of the skins?
I think you mean instead of…

[Woodserson]

Instead of.

Also, mohair

[FourthCoast]

[...]
It does sound like somewhat challenging conditions for a trial run.
[...]

In what conditions are nylon skins the best choice?

[Woodserson]

[...]
It does sound like somewhat challenging conditions for a trial run.
[...]

In what conditions are nylon skins the best choice?

Climbing hills with a load.
Wet snow conditions that will saturate mohair. This is wet. Like warm spring day on a lake wet.
Very hard and icey snow.
Whenever you need maximum grip.

I rarely use nylon and when I do it's because my skiing is going to be step by step, not kick and glide.

[FourthCoast]

[...]
It does sound like somewhat challenging conditions for a trial run.
[...]

In what conditions are nylon skins the best choice?

Climbing hills with a load.
Wet snow conditions that will saturate mohair. This is wet. Like warm spring day on a lake wet.
Very hard and icey snow.
Whenever you need maximum grip.

I rarely use nylon and when I do it's because my skiing is going to be step by step, not kick and glide.

Thanks for the responses.

I ended up using the off-the-roll Mohairs to make 3/4 length skins for my old K2s. Maybe I will try those today for comparison.

So just now I ordered MORE ski skins. Asnes Mohair X-Skins are on the way from Neptune Mountaineering. Hopefully I can sneak them in with the other holiday packages without anyone asking too many questions.

I guess I will try the nylon skins again when we have some rock hard refrozen stuff.

[FourthCoast]

[...]Were you using skins for fun?[...]

It is all for fun, right? Or are you guys getting paid to telemark!?

Edit: A more serious answer is that I was messing around in the yard trying to figure out how to XC when the snow is terrible for waxing. I hoped to get performance similar to the Balla Hok's that my daughter has. She can climb the backyard hill in any sort of snow and also slide back down without getting clumps of snow stuck on the built-in skin.

I suspect, as Woods has told me many times, mohair is the answer.

[lowangle al]

Once you put the skins on you've lost the perfect continuity between the flats, ups, and downhill.

FWIW I've had BD kicker skins for almost 30 years and only used them a few times. I mostly use kickwax and switch to scaled skis when temps are warm. The times I've used the skins were on overnighters where I took waxable skis and ran into warm snow conditions.

They would be good for climbing with a heavy pack, but then you don't need continuity between the ups and downs.