161 VERSUS 183 - A FIELD TEST

Nordic skate skiing is one of my favourite pastimes here in Interior Alaska. However, it has some drawbacks, as opposed to the traditional, classic cross-country skiing (which I also greatly enjoy). First, you need a relatively flat and at least partially groomed surface, without more than a few cm of loose snow on top. Second, the trail must generally be about two metres wide, and third, to get effective glide for efficient, fast, and fun skating, the temperature really needs to be warmer than -20C (-4F), and preferably, warmer than -15C (+5F).

Then, our nordic ski trail systems around Fairbanks, groomed for skating, don't allow canines on them, even if they are assistant editors and research assistants for prestigious on-line reviews. And, the local rivers (Tanana and Chena) can have high amounts of fast snowmachine traffic on weekends, posing a hazard for Homer and Mattie. So, when I was in my latest ski class last week (your lead editor is a professional ski student, been taking lessons for six years now, with no end in sight!), a very knowledgeable local expert, Jim Lokken, told me about some short skate skis on clearance at our local sport shop.

They are called "jibskate" skis, Fischer brand. On Fischer's web-site, it says they are for free-style skating and acrobatics. Jim said he got some a few years ago and has been able to skate on narrower trails than with his regular skate skis. Here you can see the difference. My regular skate skis are 183 cm long, the Fischer jibskates are only 161 cm. The are a little on the heavy side, but they have great camber, which  helps make up for their short length, by absorbing most of the energy of your push, with each skate stride, and transferring it to the snow surface.

So, I got these last weekend, for a fraction of their normal price. This past tuesday then, I  decided to test them out on some narrower, canine-friendly, but not too heavily used (at least on a weekday) snow-machine packed trails.

First stop was a portion of the Yukon Quest trail, near Chena Hot Springs, about 90 km east of Fairbanks. The Yukon Quest is the toughest, coldest, mushing race in Alaska, from Fairbanks to Whitehorse, Yukon, every February. It's usually much colder during this race, than for the Iditarod, which is currently ongoing, from near Anchorage, to Nome.

We drove out to the Chena Dome trailhead, which is about 10 km west of Chena Hot Springs. The Yukon Quest trail intersects it, only a few hundred metres in. Unfortunately, a large area of overflow ice was in our way, right off the bat.

So we had to carefully edge around that, as I did not want to ice up the gliding surface of the skate skis, which would then collect snow, and really slow me down. It was about -13C (+12F) when we started around 1030 in the morning.

As you can see, the trail was pretty narrow, only about a metre wide. With my regular skate skis, it would have been difficult, to impossible, to execute the main technique for skating on the flats, the V2 stride. Which is where you push off with both poles to each side, with each kick that you make. It almost does look a little like ice skating, but with longer implements on your feet, and poles in your hands.

However, with the shorter skis, I was actually able to V2, not fully, as the trail wasn't quite wide enough, but partially. This alone, helped me to go quite a bit faster, than if I was on my classic skis, kicking each one straight ahead, and poling with the opposite hand. There were a few short gentle uphill sections though, in the 16 km section that we skated out on. Unfortunately, one metre trail width is not wide enough to V1, which is the uphill stride. Where you lean further out over each ski as you kick uphill, and plant your poles on just one side, leaving the other side just a kick, without a pole push. You have to have your skis in a wider stance to do this. So, I ended up having to really use my arms alot to keep from sliding back, while I tried to V1 in a faster tempo. Not ideal for long distances. Jim L. said he sometimes puts grip wax on the kick zone of these skis, so he can use a classic stride to go uphill. But it does slow down the skating somewhat on the flats and downhills he said.

After about 16km, or just over 90 minutes (1.5 to 2X faster than if I had been on classic skis), I had to turn around. The trail was getting too narrow for any skating at all. If I was on some kind of race or back-country outing, at this point I would have to put grip wax on, and go into a classic stride, if I would want to continue. However, I wanted to solely test the skating properties of these skis, so I didn't do that.

We got back to the trailhead after our just over 3 hour 32km outing (including a 15 min. lunch stop), wanting more time out. It was getting colder as well, a mini-"Arctic Front" was coming through, with light snow and west winds bringing colder air in. The temperature had dropped to -17C (+5F) when we finished, and I could tell my glide was not quite as good, since my glide wax was for warmer conditions. Mattie and Homer too, were itching for more trail time.

So, we drove through some near white-out conditions to the Elliott Highway, which we then took 50 km north, to the main trailhead for the BLM White Mountains National Recreation Area.
http://www.blm.gov/ak/st/en/prog/nlcs/white_mtns.html
This is the NRA that has several cabins on an extensive trail system, that people can reserve and stay in, after skiing, snowmachining, biking, or hiking in. When we got to the Wickersham Dome trailhead at 1600 in the afternoon, the temperature had dropped to -19C (-2F), and there was a couple of cm of stiff new powder on the trail.

These trails are a little wider, packed down by more snowmachine traffic. About 1.5 to 2 metres wide. I've skated on my 183 cm skis here before, but had to actually take them off and walk, on narrower, uphill sections. On the gentle uphill slants like this, I was able to execute a decent V1, and keep up a regular pace. Even with the reduced glide from the colder temperature and stiff new powder.

But when we got to a steeper uphill section, about 8 km in, I couldn't keep up my V1, the trail just wasn't quite wide enough. So I had to duckwalk, or herring-bone up, which is very slow and awkward. That is when we decided to turn back.

Most of the 8km back to the trailhead were flat or downhill, which made for a very fast return. All in all, this was a great test, of these new skis. And we would recommend them for anyone who wants to be able to skate on narrower trails.

Our next step, is to "hybridise" them, by applying grip wax to the kick zone on the ski base, and see how well that works to allow us to do a classic stride uphill, and if, or how much, this will slow our skating, on the flats, and downhills. We'll give you a full report after we complete that test. Cheers.