Looks like it's going to be a long spring season this year in the Sierras. I'm not a racer, just a run of the mill Palisades all mountain, bump, powder skier. So, for guys like me, what wax do you guys like for the spring season in Tahoe? Blends, secret formulas, tricks....lets hear them.
More than you are asking for, but here is my own tried and true spring wax routine to protect bases and go sorta fast on high moisture spring snow that starts frozen and may be slush later on older spring ski beaters. Because I really like the 80/20 rule on ski wax (20% of effort and cost for 80% + of the results) for just tooling around, like it sounds like the case here, my favorite is a straight hydrocarbon wax in the high 20 degree ranges. For me that's the swix 180 gram bulk bars PS7 or PS8 purple or red. I don't like the super soft b/c while nominally faster it comes off the ski too quickly. I iron my wax in. After it cools, I prefer overnight,
don’t scrape. Use your soft copper structure brush or your firmest nylon/hair brush and give each ski 20 firm strokes to open up the wax to prevent suction on the wet stuff. The brushing is the key, not the wax. First run on the icier snow takes the wax off the edges and the deep grooves in the wax keep you from sticking later to the wet stuff. If you need your edges on point on turns 1 - 10, scrape the edges off, otherwise it takes care of itself in the first 200 yds. I will go two or three old guy afternoon sessions on this prep- it works great and your skis are always adequately slidey on the warm snow. Keeps the ski base relatively dirt free and protected if you do want to get serious with an actual full prep/wax for speed later, you don't stick to the really slushy stuff and they get faster as you go when things warm up and its less than 10 mins every few ski days of waxing effort : ). A note If you use a colder wax you get “wax high” in the middle of your ski if you’re a carver after a couple sessions, another reason the mid-range waxes are sort of goldilocks for the snow-scrape as described. Finally, under heading of take it or leave it, any rub ons I have used, including for nordic skate, that are not for a one-run high flouro (or whatever the flouro alternate is now) type of deal, never last very long without putting so much effort into getting it into the base with the applicator and/or applying on each run, you save time with the iron anyways.
