Telemark Talk / Telemark Tips Forum

Hey folks!

So I've seen a couple threads on here about grip waxing the tips of waxless skis to improve grip for climbing and I'm intrigued. I have a set of Madshus M62s that struggle to maintain grip while climbing in cold dry snow (live in NW Montana so those are our conditions quite often). I've heard @lilcliffy talk about waxing the whole base of some of his waxless skis in Swix Polar and then Swix Blue from the heel forward. Which sounds awesome, but does that entail waxing over the scale pattern? Because that sounds like a nightmare. I was planning on hot waxing in Polar tip and tail and then the corresponding grip wax from the scale pattern forward but if there's a better way, I'm all ears. Looking for some clarification! Thanks in advance everyone!

HI!
Yes- I grip wax my scaled skis-
I only use hard (cold) grip wax though.
It works great for my local conditions.
I use Swix Polar as a base wax- and then Swix Green/Blue as a kick wax.
As the temperature rises during the afternoon- the scales become more and more effective.

I would suggest you just go for it and try it- if you don't like it, or don't find it works for you- esay enough to strip the wax from the base.

Grip wax doesn't pool in the scale valleys like hard glide wax does.

lilcliffy wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 21, 2024 1:31 pm

Grip wax doesn't pool in the scale valleys like hard glide wax does.

Hey! Thanks for the reply! Do you just crayon it on over the scales and use an iron to melt it over the scale pattern?

I heat and melt and buff the Polar into the base-
I crayon and buff kick wax over the scales.

Awesome, thank you for the clarification. Coming from using exclusively glide waxes on Nordic and Alpine skis the idea of waxing a scale pattern felt very wrong! Haha. I'll give this a shot next time we get some cold snow. Temps are warming up considerably in the next week or so and the M62s seem to do a better job grabbing in warmer snow conditions.

bmholt_ wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 21, 2024 1:46 pm

Temps are warming up considerably in the next week or so and the M62s seem to do a better job grabbing in warmer snow conditions.

@lilcliffy, a year later I finally got around to trying this technique. We've had a string of dry weather that was turned almost all the snowpack in to facets and this morning we got another dumping of cold dry snow.

Temps this morning were about -12C. I crayoned and ironed in some Swix green from the tip to the end of the scale pattern and buffed it. Used some glide wax on the tail just to try and help with glide since the temps were cold enough that the green was going to be acting as a grip wax. Took the skis out behind work and was AMAZED at the slope angles I was able to climb.

I need to get some Polar to be able to use it as the base wax on the ski so I'm not having to worry about glide wax and to give the grip wax something to stick to. But, even doing it this way it was apparent how much of a difference it made.

Just a word of caution @bmholt_ I was out recently in -17C or in my world 2 F, I had to strip the polar of my skis to get them to slide. They were still slow, but it usually isn’t that cold where I live, so I don’t glide wax my skis. It was also 6”-8” of fresh cold powder.

The Swix Polar White is definitely the WAY for off-track skiing. I started doing the tips and tails of scaled skis with great results there, too. I only ever had trouble one time when it was unusually cold. Right now the following skis are tip to tail (TTT) or tip and tail, if scales (TAT):
Asnes Gamme 54 TTT
Asnes Falketind 62 TTT
Voile Objective TAT
Rossi BC65 TAT
Rossi BC80 TAT

Pretty much the only skis I don't use polar white as a base are on my resort skis, and I've thought about trying it on one of those!

fisheater wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 03, 2025 1:13 pm

Just a word of caution @bmholt_ I was out recently in -17C or in my world 2 F, I had to strip the polar of my skis to get them to slide. They were still slow, but it usually isn’t that cold where I live, so I don’t glide wax my skis. It was also 6”-8” of fresh cold powder.

Good to know! I'm gonna get out and do some more extensive testing on them here in the next couple days on my days off. I fully anticipate the Swix green giving me some trouble with glide but I can still see the principle at work here and with some tweaking for conditions it seems really promising.

Did you have to strip the polar completely or did you leave it on the scales?