The Craftsbury Marathon is tomorrow, and while Craftsbury got the same hellacious thaw and torrential rain as the rest of the East on Wednesday night and Thursday, they appear to have weathered it better than most. Now it’s time to figure out the wax for Kris Freeman who will be doing the marathon as his final preparation before traveling back to Europe for World Championships.
I just got the full phone report from Pat O’Brien. The outdoor center turned out all hands for a shoveling operation yesterday afternoon and evening – all the green team skiers and rowers, and the entire staff – to ensure that the portions of the race loop that are hard to reach by truck had the coverage necessary. They will move additional snow from their manmade stockpile later today or tonight to the problem areas that they have access to. Pat reports that some following snow shower provided an inch or so of powder on top of the mess of saturated crud that was left by the thaw.
Pat’s expectation is that the groomers will till the course once the cold has refrozen everything completely, and he expects that the new snow will be thoroughly mixed with the transformed and icy substrate. He also reports plenty of dirt, and a lot of blow-down detritus. Temperatures are in the low teens today in Craftsbury, and lows tonight will go below zero. Given the extremely high standard that Craftsbury has set in their course preparation, I expect the best possible conditions, which will include solid, abrasive and fast tracks, with icy patches and plenty of dirt. Sounds like perfect New England skiing!
At this point it’s hard to conceive of a binder and hardwax scenario. The new snow that has fallen should be thoroughly mixed with refrozen granular ice. It’s a klister day, for sure. The one potential complicating factor is the increasing likelyhood in forecast models of some new snow on Saturday. Right now the NOAA forecast indicated snow shower starting mainly after noon. But we’ll want to keep an eye out in the morning, and I will have some hardwax covers on test skis.
Durability is the first concern in a situation like this. We’ll run a number of layers of hard paraffin, with a Graphite underlayer built in. And we’ll definitely run a fluoro powder – likely Vauhti Blackfox – for speed and durability. But the real concern is the kick wax. Because I trust it implicitly I will certainly have a thin layer of Rode Chola on the base. Chola is extremely brittle and hard, and it requires some interim base klister to hold the kicking klister well. I have had really good luck with the new Vauhti K-Base klister that we started working with in December. So – a very thin layer of Chola, with a cushion of K-base heated to it.
For kicking klister I will prepare a number of test skis. If the snow is primarily quite fine-grained, then a good kicking blue klister like the new Vauhti K-blue, Guru blue, or maybe Rex Blue will be in the game. But if it is a mix of coarser granular snow then a hard strong klister in the violet range will be worth working with. I will certain prepare a K-Violet ski, along with a pre-mix 75%/25% violet/uni from Vauhti. I’ll also look at Guru 39 Hard, and maybe Rex Violet.
Finally, I’ll have some covering drywax ready to go. My guess is something in the blue range, but we’ll have to see in the morning. That will depend on how sharp vs rounded the crystals are.