Telemark Talk / Telemark Tips Forum

A large fraction of my ski outings are in Swix Polar temperatures, many between -20°C and -25°C, when Swix Polar, or my skin skis, and a -15°C glide wax (either Vauhti liquid Minus Universal or Kühl rub-on) work fine and I get satisfactory glide. Today was the first outing of the season below -30°C (-32°C). I spent most of the outing yo-yoing a sledding hill, with a freshly track-set "approach" to/from the hill. No glide at all in the tracks, but as soon as I stepped off onto the groomed skating corduroy the skis started kicking and gliding.

Is base structure the key below -30°C?

Does anyone make waxes that go to -40?

What do people who ski in the Antarctic and Greenland use? A quick web search on the latter only told me some of them plod along at 3km/h. Ok if you are pulling a pulk, but I don't see any physical reason why a 10°C temperature change has to cut your diagonal stride speed by more than half.

My local XC shop recommended Swix Pro Polar glide wax, which is rated down to -32°C. Well, Swix V05 Polar kick wax is supposed to be rated to -30°C, but it sure doesn't seem to work well at that temperature.

I get to -30 at least several times a year. -40 very occasionally… but Mother Nature hasn’t been that cruel in my area for a few years now.

Snow at that temperature is very high friction. Corduroy has been machined, so maybe the crystals aren’t as sharp. The ridges reduce surface contact too.

AFAIK, structure only works at much warmer temps. It’s role is to prevent base suction from water.

None of my waxes work well at the ends of their ranges.

I was skiing in -15C to -17C yesterday. Tip to tail Swix White Polar with Toko Blue kick wax gave me great grip but I was definitely dragging a little on the glide. Not so much that I gave up, but definitely enough that I could tell. No where near -40C but I bet you get a lot of drag with Swix White.

JohnSKepler wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 20, 2022 7:54 pm

I was skiing in -15C to -17C yesterday. Tip to tail Swix White Polar with Toko Blue kick wax gave me great grip but I was definitely dragging a little on the glide. Not so much that I gave up, but definitely enough that I could tell. No where near -40C but I bet you get a lot of drag with Swix White.

No green?
I have spoiled a few good ski outings with blue and wish I went with green. Glide was fine but just losing the last foot, you know?

This green? Yup… all stocked up for the season, along with all of the other colours of the rainbow.

But it’s only good down to -32C. Much colder than that and I’d use a graphite (dry lubricant) type wax.

Just to be clear though, when folks use the term Polar White are they talking glide wax (which is green) or grip wax (which is white)?

Not rated to -40f, but start green is the extreme cold wax I use. I recall it was widely used by racers 25 years ago, but things have probably changed with fluoros and graphite entering the picture.
-20 f here today, didn't ski, but if I had I would have used start green glider on the glass skis.

And now they’re changing back… ha ha, now that flouro waxes are banned. Which they should have been years ago.

According to Zach from Caldwell Sport, for very cold dry conditions, you want a ski with less surface area to reduce drag so camber profile comes into play. This is opposite to the mainstream accepted wisdom that says for cold temps, you should have a longer running surface to help melt a thin layer of snow. I guess there comes a point where it’s so cold, there’s no melting going on.

Oh, I can totally see that. Makes perfect sense. Snow is like sandpaper when it’s extremely cold. Even the waxes that do work don’t work for long… they “go off” minutes before my face does.

Is there a temp specific hot glide wax for those temps that you could use on tips and tails and only use polar as a kick wax.

FWIW, I had a gf who lived in Fairbanks back in the 70's. When it got real cold they would use only the pine tar on their wooden skis.