Erik Mundahl made our first test of the season in AK yesterday, and sent us this report:
Girdwood Nordic Ski Club Trails: Girdwood, Alaska – No testing was planned for the weekend given the generally poor early season snow conditions in Alaska. Snow in Anchorage is extremely thin, bordering on dangerous to attempt to ski. Uncharacteristically, no skiable snow is present at all in Hatcher Pass. APU and other clubs had been skiing on the trail system in Girdwood, which had a bit more snow than much of the Anchorage area. Conditions still sounded marginal, but seeing one too many Instagram photos finally compelled me to go take a look and hopefully do a little testing.
It turned out that Girdwood received a couple inches of fresh, wet snow overnight and temperatures hovered around freezing all morning. Unfortunately, some Halloween weekend extra-curriculars resulted in challenging Sunday morning and a severely delayed start, not leaving Anchorage until after noon. By that time, temperatures had soared as a storm front moved in.
Zach put together a grind test fleet that arrived recently. Earlier in the week, all skis were waxed with Vauhti LF Blue for grind testing.
The grind test fleet consisted of the following:
• TG1-1
• TB2n
• S2-1X
• TG1-2
• TG-S
• 258B
• LS0B
• S1-0X
• TB2o
• TB1
• L2-0S
• TB3
Approaching Girdwod, it started raining….heavily. Temperatures ranged from the upper 30’s to lower 40s depending on proximity to the ocean. Driving up the Girdwood valley, the rain subsided a bit, and temperatures dropped to approximately 34° F. Based on the weather, I decided to throw out the colder grinds and try to minimize the time spent skiing in the rain. TG1-1, LS0B, TB1, and S1-0X were removed from the test.
While it was obvious there was a fair bit of fresh snow on in the area, the trail was heavily skied in. Snow was completely saturated, essentially compacted slush. Care was needed to not skate too aggressively, lest you push right through to the ground below. Woefully small pole baskets did little to aid in the forward momentum.
All skis were tested by feel in a round-robin head-to-head comparison.
The results:
1) TB3
2) TB2o
3) 258B
4) S2-1X
5) TG-S
6) TG1-2
7) TB2n
8) L2-0S.
TB3 proved to be far better of the rest of the grinds tested. These results are directly in line with what I would have predicted based on the saturation of the snow and the warm temperatures. TB2o was a distant second. In the few icy areas, 258B was very close, or faster than the TB2o. Many grinds that felt alright at low speeds felt particularly “suctiony” at higher speeds. S2-1X was a good example of that phenomenon. I’ll leave any further discussion of these results to Zach.
The entire testing regime took only an hour at most. That was more than enough time to become thorough drenched and even more thoroughly disenchanted with the soft, mushy, and all-around miserable skiing. Thank you to the Girdwood Nordic Ski Club for the awesome early season grooming though!
Notes from Zach:
We didn’t focus on saturated wet conditions when we set-up this fleet, so many of our most successful wet grinds aren’t represented here. However, this test is very valuable in that it allows us to isolate the marginal range of some of our more common structures. Of particular interest are the following observations:
- TB3 has been successful for us in a wide range of conditions, down to violet hardwax classic tracks. It’s a wet grind with a wide range, and this test gives our already high confidence in this structure another boost.
- TB2o is a scaled-down version of the TB3 pattern. It is finer and shallower, but all of the frequencies and the compounding layers scale accurately. It appears that the concept worked well in Erik’s test.
- TB3 and 258B are both grinds that I would categorize as “warm” but with a range in colder conditions (below freezing). I’m not surprised by the added efficiency of the TB3, and I’m curious to see how to the two compare in somewhat colder conditions. My guess is that 258B will simply run colder.
- 258B and S2-1X have been subject to a whole bunch of head to head comparison in our testing over the past couple of years as we try to simplify our Red range offerings. Both have their advocates and adherents. It is notable the S2-1X got a little sucky at higher speed. One more tick on the side of 258B as a (more) viable option as conditions get wet.
- The grinds at the bottom end of this list are all well outside of their intended range, and it’s not terribly interesting to compare their performance in these conditions.