kick wax for touring?

I've been using Swix Blue Extra on my Work Stinx this year with excellent results. I crayon a ton of the stuff on the base then iron it on to spread it around and smooth it down and help it retain to the base. It sticks best on a dry ski without a lot of glide wax. The blue extra has a range 19-30 F for new snow and 12-27 F for transformed. I just returned from a trip to Nelson where the temps ranged from 7 F to 28 F and had no problems with the lower temps causing snow to cake up on my bases. Downhill glide even in the cold temps was excellent. Grip and glide on the flats and on the groomed nordic tracks back to the car after a run was great. I haven't noticed any problems with the stuff gumming up the adhesive of my skins - and I've used them a lot over the blue extra. Last year I fooled around with the warmer Violet Special, but wasn't happy with it's narrow temp range. I had one bad afternoon in some new cold snow.

Around here the kick wax has been working well as long as the temps are around 28 F or below. Any warmer and you're putting on the climbing skins. I would recommend removing kick wax before going into warmer spring snow. When the stuff warms up it can pick up a lot of junk and you wouldn't want to put your skins on over that. This is mainly a problem in the spring when the snow is dirty.

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. 

Nope, that's not how the kick wax works on alpine cambered skis. What happens is that at low speeds the wax grips, but once you gain a certain speed on the downhill you overcome the friction of the wax and it's effects are barely noticeable. And for kicking and gliding it's way better than with skins. The camber on double camber skis makes it so that the the friction is not noticeable at all, since the wax isn't touching the snow during the glide. A racer might care about that, but for ski touring on heavy gear it's not much of a concern.

There are many touring situations where kick wax is useful. If applied right it doesn't poison skins. Right means simply to cork thin layers in well, so they stick better to the ski than to the skin. I've used it for years without damaging my skins. It's easiest to use for cold snow when blue extra or even colder (rare on the west slope of the Cascades) works like a charm. It works well on single camber skis - it is fast enough that you won't notice a problem. I have also used klister frequently for wet corn snow, and that too has not damaged my skins. I use a thin layer as a kicker just in the middle of the ski. When klister works it usually works really well. The intermediate zone of fresh, wet snow is most difficult to wax for. New racing waxes are much better (more tolerant and wider range) than the old ones, but it takes experience to get it right. Often I don't fight it and use kicker skins or fishscales for those mellow sections where full skins don't seem appropriate.

Anybody used the Swix two-wax system this way? The blue tin claims to span a range from -15C to 0C.

I've got a collection of Swix waxes for my old XC skis. I'm gonna have to try them on my light AT skis now.

I did a moderate length reconnaissance trip today on groomed snowmobile roads. Got a chance to use kick wax, skinny skins, and wide skins. No problems with wax gumming up the skins, as far as I could tell. I found the wax nice for flat and gently ascending/rolling roads. For steeper, more continuous road ascents, the wax was marginal and thin skins worked better.

I was on light AT skis with mountaineering boots (my "ultimate alpine touring boots") so my stride was mostly shuffling, not really kicking.

I used Swix two-wax Blue in the morning. Later in the day I rubbed on some Blue Extra. I waxed the middle third of the ski. A longer wax pattern would probably have been fine as well. I didn't bother corking it, wanting as much grip as possible. I think the Blue Extra gripped better today, but maybe it was just because I had a thicker coat.

My conclusion is that wax definitely can be useful on AT skis, but you can't expect to climb steeply. It is best for low angle shuffling where you just need a little grip.

I think I am going to retire my wide skins for these skis (a pair of well worn BCA "Low Fat" skins). They have the worst glide I've ever experienced. Just terrible. Who knows, maybe I won't need thin skins if I have a better pair of wide ones...

I followed MD2020's directions for waxing with Swix Extra Blue and liked the results. I corked out the wax after ironing it in, then gave it a light brush with a soft nylon bristle ski brush. I then proceeded to the east slope where the temps were in the low 20's.
While I couldn't hold in an ascending skin track, I could climb out of the occasional hole in unconsolidated snow and uphill sections of the out-track. It is definitely an improvement over the pure glide wax base that I was using, and I didn't have to break out the kicker skins once.
On the downhill runs the glide seemed just as fast once the ski started picking up speed.
The skins didn't appear to remove any wax.
Thanks for the tip MD2020.