Viability of Waxable Skis

[randoskier]

Do you have dogs? The Kongsvold is a dog-friendly ski with no metal edges.

For your needs I would sell both pairs, and buy a pair of Fischer Traverse 78s, you can get the 2024 for about 200 bucks now (it takes a long skin but no ez skin). The 2025 model with ez skin capability costs about 350 bucks.

Make candles out of the wax.

[corlay]

Im with Rando - I don't mess with warm-weather waxes, ever.

And the Fisher TR78 is a great choice for these conditions...

[Capercaillie]

My experience is spring touring in the Canadian Rockies (mostly Jasper NP). Overnight freezing to ice, followed by thaw into slush, sometimes with breakable crust. I have read multiple people claiming that Cascades are totally different from continental snowpacks and waxing doesn't work. Maybe my advice won't work. But I have also been told by several people that skin skis and fishscales are just as good as waxing or klister in my local conditions, and that has proven to be complete BS in my experience. I have been to (but not skied) Mt Rainier and Lassen NP in the summer, and the snow there looked like excellent klister conditions to me.

Every time I have used EZ skins on spring snow with my TN66 I wished I had used klister instead. Klister simply climbs better, and there is no comparison on downhills. I don't want to "transition" on rolling terrain, and downhill skiing with kicker skins (or XC skin skis, for that matter) sucks.

The Åsnes X-skin attachment system is inferior to Fischer's. The X-skin front clips will sometimes start to unhook on their own while skiing and will start to pull the skin off the ski. The two "fangs" on the clips will tear up your jacket if you want to put the skins in a pocket. It is a really bad design IMO.

Where kicker skins come in useful is steeper powder.

On soft waxes, I use Swix V60 red-silver regularly. It works for a much narrower range of snow conditions than a universal klister, and actually ends up being messier. On the positive side, it does not ice up and picks up less debris than klister. There are other "soft" hard waxes I use that are more hard wax-like in consistency (discontinued Swix V52, VF40; Toko Red) but they have an even more narrow range for snow conditions, and still tend to stick to skin glue.

@fisheater has some excellent advice on cleaning klister off of skis. I also follow his advice to keep klister tubes in zip-lock bags with baby powder.

I leave klister on. Put a strip of packing paper over the klister, that keeps it in place and from getting on other things.

The most important thing is applying klister the right way. If you squeeze two thin lines of klister down the grip zone on each side of the center groove, all you need to do is flatten each one out (I do them one at a time) with a pass or two with a scraper (metal ones work better than plastic). There is no need for rubbing anything, or sidewall-to-sidewall coverage (all that will do is make the klister get onto the center groove, edges, and sidewalls later). No mess. And this is actually easier than applying hard wax.

Then maybe lightly crayon some of the soft wax mentioned previously over that if you encounter icing.

[randoskier]

My experience is spring touring in the Canadian Rockies (mostly Jasper NP). Overnight freezing to ice, followed by thaw into slush, sometimes with breakable crust. I have read multiple people claiming that Cascades are totally different from continental snowpacks and waxing doesn't work. Maybe my advice won't work. But I have also been told by several people that skin skis and fishscales are just as good as waxing or klister in my local conditions, and that has proven to be complete BS in my experience. I have been to (but not skied) Mt Rainier and Lassen NP in the summer, and the snow there looked like excellent klister conditions to me.

Every time I have used EZ skins on spring snow with my TN66 I wished I had used klister instead. Klister simply climbs better, and there is no comparison on downhills. I don't want to "transition" on rolling terrain, and downhill skiing with kicker skins (or XC skin skis, for that matter) sucks.

I used to live in Estes Park, Colorado and Leavenworth WA (PLywood Bavaria), grew up skiing in Vermont.. so I know a few snows. Now I reside the foothills of the Dolomites (Piccolo Dolomiti) and also ski in Austria quite a bit and Slovenia (Julian Alps) on occasion (colder winters). But I Nordic ski mostly in Norway, Finland, western Sweden, and France. of these Norway has similar snow to the Cascades. Touring extensively in Norway I see precious few Norwegians waxing their skis these days (except glide wax of course). I have never been tempted. The Traverse 78 is a hugely popular ski there, climbs like a tractor. The most recent generation of Fischer crown scales is awesome, and coupled with the easy skin- versatile. I carry an E-bay Black Diamond rug for larger mountains and heavier pulks. No mess, no farting around (no pun intended) in severe cold with waxes, and I never felt lacking. I think wax addiction is like smoking butts, the addict needs something to do with their hands : )

[pacificnomad]

My experience is spring touring in the Canadian Rockies (mostly Jasper NP). Overnight freezing to ice, followed by thaw into slush, sometimes with breakable crust. I have read multiple people claiming that Cascades are totally different from continental snowpacks and waxing doesn't work. Maybe my advice won't work. But I have also been told by several people that skin skis and fishscales are just as good as waxing or klister in my local conditions, and that has proven to be complete BS in my experience. I have been to (but not skied) Mt Rainier and Lassen NP in the summer, and the snow there looked like excellent klister conditions to me.

Every time I have used EZ skins on spring snow with my TN66 I wished I had used klister instead. Klister simply climbs better, and there is no comparison on downhills. I don't want to "transition" on rolling terrain, and downhill skiing with kicker skins (or XC skin skis, for that matter) sucks.

The Åsnes X-skin attachment system is inferior to Fischer's. The X-skin front clips will sometimes start to unhook on their own while skiing and will start to pull the skin off the ski. The two "fangs" on the clips will tear up your jacket if you want to put the skins in a pocket. It is a really bad design IMO.

Where kicker skins come in useful is steeper powder.

On soft waxes, I use Swix V60 red-silver regularly. It works for a much narrower range of snow conditions than a universal klister, and actually ends up being messier. On the positive side, it does not ice up and picks up less debris than klister. There are other "soft" hard waxes I use that are more hard wax-like in consistency (discontinued Swix V52, VF40; Toko Red) but they have an even more narrow range for snow conditions, and still tend to stick to skin glue.

@fisheater has some excellent advice on cleaning klister off of skis. I also follow his advice to keep klister tubes in zip-lock bags with baby powder.

I leave klister on. Put a strip of packing paper over the klister, that keeps it in place and from getting on other things.

The most important thing is applying klister the right way. If you squeeze two thin lines of klister down the grip zone on each side of the center groove, all you need to do is flatten each one out (I do them one at a time) with a pass or two with a scraper (metal ones work better than plastic). There is no need for rubbing anything, or sidewall-to-sidewall coverage (all that will do is make the klister get onto the center groove, edges, and sidewalls later). No mess. And this is actually easier than applying hard wax.

Then maybe lightly crayon some of the soft wax mentioned previously over that if you encounter icing.

Thanks for the wisdom! The snow conditions that you mention at Jasper NP mirror what my snow looks like for around half the season; refrozen ice in the early hours followed by slush by the late afternoon. From what I've read, waxable skis still offer the greatest amount of versatility in terms of grip, when paired with a kicker skin if needed. One thing that makes me hesitant to get on the kicker skin train, is that most of the terrain that I ski is undulating and would hate to have to make frequent transitions, especially since most of my outtings are just 1-2 hrs long and often at done at lactate threshold and I just want to keep moving! Yeah, it sounds like universal klister is the way to go and the application method you mention seems to be the preference of others too.

[phoenix]

" The most important thing is applying klister the right way. If you squeeze two thin lines of klister down the grip zone on each side of the center groove, all you need to do is flatten each one out (I do them one at a time) with a pass or two with a scraper (metal ones work better than plastic). There is no need for rubbing anything, or sidewall-to-sidewall coverage (all that will do is make the klister get onto the center groove, edges, and sidewalls later). No mess. And this is actually easier than applying hard wax."

Very good advice.

[JohnSKepler]

I think it has more to do with temperature ranges and variability more than any specific temperature. I tried hard to make wax skis work for me here in Northern Utah. Eventually I went to scales because of the incredible variability on even a single outing. Most of the skiing in and around where I live is out of valleys up canyons. These canyons have a lot of variability of sunlight and temperature and going up on a given day I can run into fresh powder, packed powder, refrozen powder, ice, and even slush. If I knew it was going to be any one of these the whole way I'd be fine, it is the variability that's the killer for wax. I certainly find that wax skies are faster and, when the wax works, have great grip. But overall, they tend to be pretty frustrating.

There are times in the dead of winter when my Gamme 54 skis are just the fastest thing around and climb like crazy, but that's maybe, 10% of days. And on those days, I get them out and feel fast. And, occasionally there are winters like 2022-2023 when it was more like 75% of days!

[John Dee]

I have never had a good time with kicker skins or klister. I'm not saying that you couldn't, but I wouldn't want my skiing to be limited to that. Its a weird way to approach things in 2024, and your location it makes no sense at all.

[pacificnomad]

I have never had a good time with kicker skins or klister. I'm not saying that you couldn't, but I wouldn't want my skiing to be limited to that. Its a weird way to approach things in 2024, and your location it makes no sense at all.

I think a waxable ski that can accept kicker skins is likely a more versatile ski than a waxless crown ski (though most BC XC waxless skis do accept kicker skins). In my experience my S-Bound 98's had a nearly impossible time providing adequate kick on icy consolidated snow. In any snow conditions the scales on the 98's would just drag and make tons of noise, and I was on a longer spectrum of ski for my weight. Earlier this last spring I was able to take out the TN 66's in icy snow that transitioned to slush in the afternoon, and had a great time kicking and gliding on Rode -6 to +6 klister. The kick and glide was better than the 98's in both ends of the above mentioned conditions. I think I would rather deal with klister rather than having to put on and take off kicker skins repetitively during an outing. I'm toying with the idea of using a hardwax in the am when it's icy and cold, and then using a universal aerosol klister for the last km's of skiing when the snow has transitioned, and coming back to the car with essential clean kick zone due to the aerosol klister being worn off (seems to wear off cleaning per online reports.)

[John Dee]

removed.