kick wax for touring?

Whenever I shuffle through a long flat approach/deproach with my skins on, I start thinking that there must be a better way. I understand that kick wax provides some purchase and much more glide than a skin, but I never see backcountry skiers using the stuff. Do any of you have experience with this magical medium? Does it work on the fat skis everyone cruises around on these days?

Thanks for any input,
Peter

wax still works, but seems to take a lot of adjusting around here, it is so easy to get different snow on different aspects, I wax but would sometimes would rather just have waxless touring skis. I'ts been the magic Blue/purple combo for the last few days, nice glide no funny sounds except for my boot squeek

Weezer, have you tried applying climbing skins on a kick-waxed ski? If so, how well did it work? Did the wax gum up the skins?

I've never taken the time to try this out, but I've long been curious. For the trips I've done with long flattish sections, I've used narrow skins instead. On my sub-100mm touring skis, I use skins about 1 inch (25mm) wide. I tried using those skins on wider skis, with not-so-good results. Too much slipping. Maybe it was just a bad day.

I suspect that the proper sizing of "narrow skins" may be dependent on the ski width. My current theory (untested) is that narrow skins should be about 1/3 the ski width under foot, maybe a little more.

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Edited to add: Narrow skins aren't nearly as good as a waxed ski, if you can get the wax right. I haven't been patient enough yet to figure out the waxing thing.

manyana, I find out what kind of mess the wax makes on my skins, it'll be all up hill and I'm to lazy to clean my skis. I sure would not klister than stick skins on. Now that would really be a mess. yuck

The problem with using kick wax on Alpine type skis is that they are not designed like a Nordic/Cross Country ski- to produce kick and glide. The wax will stop your glide as well as give you kick. The XC type skis have a kick camber- some have double cambers. XC skis are made to flatten when your full weight is on one ski and not make contact when you weight both skis. Also if you have the wrong wax it will ball up and have no glide.

You can get pretty good glide on thinner skins, shorter skins or some skins have more glide then others. The Rando Racers use shorter/narrow skins and/or Mohair skins- much better glide; but not as durable. I have some Col-tex skins that glide pretty well- they have less Nape(?)- or maybe shorter fur(?). They do not have the purchase/kick of BD skins- especially the Assentions and usually they don't have the good glue either. Several companies make better gliding skins- or use skin wax. My experience with skin wax is better glide and less kick- maybe too much wax????

You can get wide skins with better glide or narrow with better kick- when you get too narrow you won't have kick on a traverse. I tried playing around with different skins last spring/summer and like most of the ski covered with better gliding skins- the Euro skins- both sets are Col-Tex. I don't like the steep climbs anyway- extra bonus they are also lighter- hum half the weight better glide? They can be a couple handsfull folding in wind. Also you get to learn more maintenance skills- re-glueing Euro glue isn't any harder then cutting skins.

Something they used years ago for XC skis- hairies- they made little hairs in the kick zone- sort of like skins. It worked very well with snow around the freezing temps. I have heard that XC racers sometimes still do this. It's hard on the skis; but maybe keep them as hairy skis?

Well, skining over my wax seemed ok. the day warmed up a bit, as we climbed and it was time for a rewax. I stuck skins on instead and had no problems. I did geta little concerned that if the snow got colder it would get under the skin and ball like in the spring, nope all good. I ski on klunky tele gear and slowly plod around the woods, so I sure ain't no racer. but skinnig on the flats is torture I do with out