I'm convinced that structure is the key. I played with waxes for years every season, tweaking, changing skis at lunch time for fresh wax, etc. And at the end I think all I did every year was kill time fooling around trying different things until the snow was "cured". Because I'd think I found the right combination by the end of the season and I'd start with that the next year and it wouldn't work. The last few years I've just been keeping a good structure on the skis throughout the season using the SkiVisions tool each time I wax. Just a few passes, keeping an eye on where things are wearing. Skied yesterday on hardpack on the AM and then down the front later into the slop on skis with green wax (hard) with no issues. Was a bit worried about certain sections where there was shade and sun, but just blasted on through. Now, two weeks back on skis that are older (lots, with 250 more days on them) and structure maybe not as fresh along the edges, I was feeling some slight slowing on those areas, but not like I was suddenly hitting a rubber mat. Once again, hard wax (CH4 as a matter of fact - yes, the weather has caught me out here, warm far too soon). So, it's not that I've got the right wax on, by far! What's happened, I think, is that we've had sufficient freeze/thaw over the past two weeks that the fresh snow has gotten what I can only call "cured". And as I think back, it's been a few years since I've really hit that "over the handle bars" stuff hard. I used to take my skis in during the spring for a stone grind, but when I finally started keeping the structure fresh, the degree of the problem improved noticeably. (There was a year I had them give me a "coarse" structure, but that made the skis tough to turn and I hated it.) But whatever I'm doing with the Ski Visions tool seems to work well enough. Not perfect, but then being more conscious of which trails have what kind of snow based on aspect, sun, recent fresh snowfall, etc. and the concept of curing seems to have eliminated the issue for me. I was passing multiple people POLING on these flat stretches like I had a propeller pushing me. It was great fun. Lol!
