Today was a mixed bag of skiing. After yesterday's big storm I headed back up to the park to do some classic skiing in the fresh (soft) tracks. It was a beautiful day, 0 to -2C with occasional passing flurries. The skiing (and the countryside) was beautiful - an ideal Christmas ski... oops, we're into March aren't we.
I skied along the Discovery trail with thoughts of a loop but the waxing for these conditions was pretty tricky. Cold(ish) dry snow(yesterday) with a fresh layer of wet, warm snow falling as I skied. This made the conditions perfect for big layers of icy snow to build up on my wax pocket allowing for ZERO glide. I reached into a my bag of waxing tricks and called on a technique the racers are now using. I layered up with carrot wax (-1 to -4C) covered with flouro blue (-4 to -9C). The carrot was perfect for grip on the warm damp snow and the cover of blue wax prevented icing up. So goes the theory anyway.... and it wasn't too bad all things considered. I should have brought a cork to work in each layer of wax but other then that it worked pretty good.
But wait a minute! I thought the rule was you couldn't cover a warmer wax with a colder wax!! That's the conventional wisdom I was taught long ago (thanks Dad) but I guess you need to know the rules before you can break 'em. The racing set are always looking for ways to improve grip vs glide. Sometimes with mixed success - just ask anyone who followed the World Championship men's 15k classic race (fiasco?) last week in Sapporo.
It was still a bit of a battle knocking the ice off the bases once in a while but I probably had fewer problems then most people. That said, everyone I came across (most of whom were scraping ice off their skis when I passed them) had big smiles on their face. Fresh snow will do that to a skier ! In the end I just did a smaller loop and took a few more pictures along the way. A great day out indeed.
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On a not-so private road to the woods
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