First Ski Wax of the Season

OK, its finally snowing and of course your caught prepping for your first day of skiing at around 10:00 the night before.  Your tired, but don’t want to cheat on that first crucial wax job.  What should you do?

The answer is easy.  Take the time to do the job right!

The first ski tune of the season really is important.  If not done properly it could affect the rest of the wax jobs you put on for the rest of the season.  The following steps should help you to plan.  Some of them will not apply to your situation, but we are trying to be complete.  Also, if you don’t know what you are doing, check out the video to the side of this post, take a local ski tuning class, or let your local shop take care of it for you.  You can actually do quite a bit of damage if you don’t do it right.

1. Thorough Inspection:  First, take the skis down and give them the old once-over.  It’s amazing how much damage goes unnoticed during a busy ski season .  Take notes and plan to address any serious flaws.

2. Clean your skis and bindings:  Any mild cleaner can be used on the top sheets and bindings to remove dust, etc.  For the bases a good wax remover should be used that is specifically designed for alpine skis.  Old wax breaks down over time and will make new wax not bond to the base.

3. Fill base grooves or holes:  We recommend filling even small groves with petex (a hard base-like material that liquefies under heat).  Definitely fill holes that expose the core of the ski to avoid moisture build up in the core materials.

4. File or grind bases/edges:  A flat file can be used to remove small burs on the bases and edges of the skis and to help keep edges and bases level.  Sometimes base grinding is necessary and this should be done by a ski shop technician.

5. Ski Wax Application: Hot wax is the only way to go and can be applied with fancy ski wax irons or even an old clothing iron.  The trick is get even application while heating the base material some.  This helps the wax to bind to the base and give you a longer lasting wax job.

6. Scrape and buff the base:  There only needs to be a thin layer of wax on the ski, so scrape generously.  Following this use a kitchen cleaning pad and evenly buff the wax to a shine.

This process really only needs to be done once or twice a year to keep your skis in action ready shape.  In between simple waxing and base maintenance should suffice.

Powder Skiing

Powder, pow, fluff, angel dust, champagne, or whatever you want to call it, it is the stuff that skiers dream of.  Powder has the magical ability to take skiing that one step closer to that sought after sensation of floating.  That perfect balance between control and reckless abandon.  That sense of weightlessness mixed with the power of the turn.  Many skiers will tell you that their best day of skiing ever was a powder day (and so was their second and third best days).

Whatever powder skiing is to you it has always been associated with very specific gear.  Those perfectly sunny powder days where a big storm that dumped 24 inches the night before and then blew over to leave a nirvana of perfect snow sparkling in the sunlight are rare.  In fact, most powder days are storm days.  This means good goggles, good outerwear, and a super pair of powder skis.

The powder ski is designed with deep, light snow skiing specifically in mind.  They tend to be wider then other ski types often being over 90 cm or wider under the foot.  They are also softer flex allowing for more ski bend in the softer, less resistant snow.  They are generally lighter themselves with an easier swing weight so that skiers can move the skis with more agility in the deep snow.  Many are now being manufactured as twin tips too.  This adds some to the carvability and flotation of the ski in the really deep stuff.

Most manufacturers are making a variety of powder skis these days and as skis get fatter and fatter, more and more people at different ability levels are able to get out and enjoy it too.  So when your shopping for your next powder ski, keep some of these characteristics in mind.

Understanding the Snow Condition

Ever been totally disappointed by the snow condition?  How about been sitting on a chairlift listening to the other skiers go on about the grapple layer base that is giving way under the 24 inches of champagne and not been too sure of what they meant?  Sure, everyone has, but don’t let this be the case simply because you didn’t understand the language.  Knowing the speak is part of the sport.  Here we accumulated a list of terms that are used frequently to describe the snow and skiing conditions.  Take a look and if I’ve somehow missed some key ones, please comment.

Piste: (pronounced pee-st), also known as groomed snow, is the machine prepared surface found on groomed runs.

Off-piste: Obviously any snow surface that is not groomed.

Crust: A condition where soft snow has developed a hard layer on top.  Sometimes the hard layer is thick enough to ski on, other times it is too thin and skiers will break through on each turn.

Crud: Heavier thick snow that may have been tracked up when it first fell and has had a chance to ‘set up’.  This can be very hard to push when making a turn.

Ice: Solid surface snow the may have been through a freeze-thaw cycle.  It has little or no give.  Ice is difficult to hold an edge on.

Powder: Soft, light, fresh, cold snow that has recently fallen and is not tracked up or settled.

Champagne powder: The pinnacle of soft powder.  Ya, we dream about this stuff.

Grapple: This is a form of snow that is much like small frozen ball bearings when it falls.  It can precede powder, but by itself tends to be heavy and make for average skiing conditions.

Freezing rain: Rain that freezes immediately upon hitting the ground or any surface.  This is lousy skiing and a better day for posting on AlpineSkiGear.net.

Storm conditions: This varies from region to region, but generally entails snowfall, wind, and heavy snow accumulation.  Great for no-crowd powder skiing days.

Cascade Concrete: In the Pacific Northwest this type of snow is all too common.  It is a high moisture content snow that can literally be as heavy as wet cement.

Corn Snow: A fun snow condition which is soft and holds a great edge.  Usually found in the spring on warmer days.  It gets its name from the frozen ‘corn’ shape that each granule has.

Slush: This is old snow that may have been frozen in the early morning but turns watery and heavy as a Spring day wears on.  It is the next phase after “Corn Snow”.

Dust on Crust: This is where a light snow fall has covered a firm frozen layer by only a few inches.  It can look good from the top, but turn out to be a real leg shaker on the way down.

Check out the video next to this article for even more snow condition information for beginners.

All-Mountain Skiing

The term all-mountain has only been around for about 10 years or so.  Prior to that we typically referred to this as free skiing or off piste skiing.  The distinction was there primarily because of the limitations that traditional ‘skinny’ skis had.  There were very few skis that could perform well on all surfaces at the time.  However, with the advent of truly versatile skis that perform equally as well in both groomed and non-groomed surfaces, the all-mountain category had to be born.  There is still some ambiguity in what that might mean.  For example, some people feel that skiing groomed runs and firm-pack non-groomed snow equates to all-mountain skiing while others argue that all-mountain means all conditions.  Our opinion is that it is really somewhere in between and as much as it would nice….there really is no ski that can handle all conditions.  Most ski manufacturers are making skis that will charm most terrain and most conditions for the average user.  These are the all-mountain skis.

All-mountain skis must perform well on firm frozen snow, soft broken snow, shallow powder, crud, and a variety of spring conditions as well.  They should have the flexibilty to allow the skier to enjoy a cruiser run on groomed surfaces one run, then carve up an ungroomed steep face the next.  Ski width plays a big role in this now days.  The all-mountain ski will fall in the middle of this spectrum.  It should not be too wide like a true powder ski, nor too narrow like a striktly carving ski.  The same is going to be true of the stiffness and torsion of the ski.  These really are the middle of the road skis in most all ski charateristics.