hemiboreal forest skiing in New Brunswick Canada

[RacehorseStu]

WHOA was I ever confused. No such thing as a BC100 ski! Definitely going for the 110, probably in 179.

[lilcliffy]

Great to hear from you Race Horse!

Good luck in Quebec! Let us know what you end up buying, and tell us the tale of skiing on it!
Happy Holidays and Happy Trails!

[lilcliffy]

Wicked conditions here in the hills- VERY cold- -24C over night, highs of -18C during the day, sunny and windy- same weather forecast into late next week.

2 feet of refrozen base- more than a foot of dry soft settled snow on top.

I have decided that grip waxing the entire base of my touring skis is da bomb.

Out all afternoon with a group over rolling to steep terrain- approx. 15kms. 4 different skis- waxed differently- same terrain- same snow- took turns breaking trail through deep soft snow.
1) 210cm Asnes Combat Nato: Swix polar waxed base, tip to tail- Swix green kick waxin the kick zone.
2) 205cm Fischer E-109 Tour: Swix hard glide wax in the glide zones- Swix green kick wax in the kick zone.
3) 205cm Madshus Eon Wax: Swix hard glide wax in the glide zones- Swix green kick wax in the kick zone.
4) 205cm Fischer E-109 Crown: swix hard glide wax in the glide zones.

Observations:
1) E-109 Crown was BRUTAL- no grip- needed both kicker skins for XC and climbing- didn't have any...(duh).
2) Eon Wax was decent- needed more grip on steep climbs- needed to put on skins- didn't have any...(duh).
3) E-109 Tour was decent- needed more grip on steep climbs- the Easy-Skin rocks!
4) Combat Nato was a machine- enough grip to not even need the Skin-Locks when climbing- just as much glide as any of them, even more when XC skiing because of the better grip- AMAZING trail-breaker- unanimous agreement on the best deep snow flex and best trail-breaker.
5) Eon and E-109 the easiest to turn- E-109 the best IMO. Combat Nato still arced wonderful long-radius turns though.
6) E-109 has the weakest trail-breaking tip.

[lilcliffy]

Forgot to mention- applied Swix green wax ahead of the scales on the E-109 Crown- HUGE improvement- though not as good as the other three skis.

[fisheater]

Interesting report Gareth. I managed to get in 10 miles yesterday. We were at 0 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday morning when I prepped my skis for hopefully about 7" of fresh. I was not sure if my local trails had much traffic on Christmas Day. My last time out I had waxed with Swix blue V-40, and it had 4 or 5 layers from the back of the heel to the tip to maximize grip at the warm end of blue and thin packed snow.
This time about 7" of powder? Well it was 0 degrees F, the coldest wax I have is Swix green V-20. I figured go full ski. Well I certainly had grip. I have never been able to go straight up the short, steep, and numerous hills. I have never experienced any like that. Glide was severely lacking, but I had the place to myself. Conditions were about 3.5" on top of about 3.5" of chopped up from Christmas hikers on top of 2" of packed glacial refrozen. I had first tracks about half of the 10 miles with three different skiers looping in. I mysteriously found glide at about six miles, and lost it for the last mile. I guess I could have tried more green, or scraped and tried again, but it wasn't terrible. It was a beautiful day, with nobody crossing my trail. I had the place to myself, I was on skis, maybe not as fast as I like, but it was great to be out.
I guess it is not much like New Brunswick, but it was a fun ski. I reaffirmed that the USGI is a fun trail ski for this area. I also realized that I need to add klister to my wax kit as many times I am trying to make wax work when I should be using klister. I also need to buy some polar green for the wax kit. We get periods of zero, the snow is great at zero, I should be prepared. I hope to go north soon, there is a real Nordic shop in that area. Time for klister and polar green kick wax. If I put my head to it, and work on klister I may not need to have waxless skinnies. I will just have a klister and a wax pair of USGI's

[Cannatonic]

great report LC! "Pinnah" advocates for using full-length grip wax also.

http://web.archive.org/web/201510021509 ... r/wax.html

after experimenting with wax & scales I only like the fischscale skis on spring corn snow conditions. It's a shame to use them when it's below freezing.

[lowangle al]

Full length grip wax is especially helpful in fresh deep powder where even with full weight on a ski it doesn't hit anything solid.

[greatgt]

Thinking go with the wax pocket....In these conditions below zero skiing the snow will be slow to begin with...Have had no problems with polar and green for breaking and the skis have been ok as far as cruising...But the crust is the biggest factor...If you don't have serious tips and length or way wide skis it's going to get you....TM

[lilcliffy]

Full length grip wax is especially helpful in fresh deep powder where even with full weight on a ski it doesn't hit anything solid.

Very, very true.

[lilcliffy]

...But the crust is the biggest factor...If you don't have serious tips and length or way wide skis it's going to get you....TM

We didn't end up with the death crust- we ended up with 2 feet of solid frozen white concrete.

BUT- thankfully we ended up getting a big cold snow storm on XMas day, giving us about a foot of now settled, cold soft, snow over a solid base.