The Alberta XCD thread

[Lhartley]

All the skis are now rock skis. Skiing is alright though. Got some decent turns on the High Noon Hills practice slopes yesterday evening. That place is unreal in the late day sun

[Inspiredcapers]

Thats some nice country. Is that road cleared all the way to Blue Rock during the winter?

[Lhartley]

The road us closed at the turnoff to Sandy McNabb campground, you can tour in from there to a few nearby trailheads. Imo the best skiing around that area is in the immediate vicinity of Sandy McNabb and the Nordic center. Awesome meadows off the ridges if you get a half decent snowpack

[Lhartley]

So anyways

[fisheater]

See what happens if you use red klister

[Inspiredcapers]

Skiing is a challenge in this part of the country this year. We had -50 w/windchill this morning. The extended forecast is indicating +2 and rain in 7 days. I might have to add a pair of scaled skis to the arsenal, figuring out wax has been a P.I.T.A.

[Lhartley]

Skiing out in the horse pasture today doing low angle laps in pow on junk, I found I really only got glide on a ski with no wax and no pattern. Even ascending was fine with no wax whatsoever. Had polar wax on these tua wilderness (scraped as much as possible off) and they were slower than the Cho Oyu with no wax.
The fishscale guides did have advantages when doing nordic stride turns with a little kick off.
Can anyone recommend a glide wax that will be optimized for -35 to 45 degrees Celsius?

[Capercaillie]

Skiing out in the horse pasture today doing low angle laps in pow on junk, I found I really only got glide on a ski with no wax and no pattern. Even ascending was fine with no wax whatsoever. Had polar wax on these tua wilderness (scraped as much as possible off) and they were slower than the Cho Oyu with no wax.

So you are saying you had Swix PS Polar glide wax, and that it had less glide than an unwaxed ski at those temperatures? That makes sense. If it is about hardness (in the Shore scale sense) at those temperatures, the polyethylene base would be harder. I wonder if an ABS base ski would be even better (no downsides to ABS here since you don't need wax absorption or mitigating surface tension).

[Lhartley]

No glide, just polar grip wax from previous use. It was pretty thoroughly scraped.

Was out again yesterday in warmer Temps and a bit of fresh snow, no more sticking issues. Nice conditions in foothills County tight now. Just my luck that I have a coolant leak and am dealing with cars instead of hitting the hills

[Capercaillie]

No glide, just polar grip wax from previous use. It was pretty thoroughly scraped.

Yeah, Swix V05 Polar kick wax is good maybe down to -27°C; at -30°C it is too sticky. Lowangle Al recommended using straight pine tar. I tried Rex Universal Tar kick wax, that worked much better past -30°C:

https://telemarktalk.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5370

Ski construction seems to make a really big difference when it comes to glide at low temperatures. Fischer TN66 is the best ski I have for temperatures below -25°C. Expedition skis like Åsnes Amundsen and Ousland probably work better too.

I have yet to figure out glide wax.