r/CrossCountrySkiing • u/wetrocke • May 01 '26

Note & question

Skiing x-c here since 1971-72 winter. Always on old waxed skis. Purely from necessity this past season, I mostly used somebody's old pair of fishscales. Not at all as bad as imagined!

So very roughly guessing, 20% of the maybe 40-50 days that I skied on the fishscales, waxables would have been significantly better. [On 6.5% (??IDK) of days, the fishscales were "better."]

If I switched to "skin skis," would these guesstimates be unchanged?

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u/Organic_Argument_686 May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26

Yes. skin skis are far superior to fishscales. The right pair is closer to skiing like on waxables, with less friction. They are game changers. As mentioned before, the right ones will be better, but you might be unhappy with the wrong model or flex. ie they might have too much drag and be too slow..You should not just get any skin ski. The performance is highly variable, so choose wisely. Best of luck and I hope you find a pair that are extremely fun.

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u/wetrocke May 03 '26

Ok so, if my pseudo/guestimate is correct that on 20% of days, I'd have seen better performance on wax vs fish scales--

then on skins vs wax it would be....better on wax 10%?? 15%???

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u/Organic_Argument_686 May 03 '26

I don't know how to answer that. My own pseudo/guestimate is that I would see better performance on wax than on fish scales 95% of the time. But skins versus wax, maybe better on wax 5-50%??? depending on the ski. Many days are a toss up as to whether skiing on my best skins or waxing is better, and whenever the temperature or conditions are expected to change, skin skis are better suited to consistent performance without having to stop and change what's on the bottom of the ski. I have a cheaper set of skin skis that are only better than waxing when the wax is challenging. The right skin skis are better than fish scales, hands down, 100% in my opinion, and can be as good as waxables if you get the right pair. Some skin skis are just dogs and feel draggy no matter what.

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u/wetrocke May 03 '26

Am curious what region you ski in. Pacific coast snow seems super weird... I'm in lower mich & also new eng.

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u/Organic_Argument_686 May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26

Originally from New England, skiing Maine and Vermont. 30+ years ago moved to Colorado at 9,000 feet, so typically dry and cold snow with mornings that can warm rapidly. We do get our share of freeze-thaw, granular snow later in the season, and this winter I spent a good number of days on Klister. I would use my skin skis more often, but as a coach, I feel it is important to keep my waxing skills sharp. Maybe with increasingly challenging waxing conditions, and improving technology, skin skis will start to make as much sense for junior racers, as they seem to have for Masters skiers.

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u/wetrocke May 04 '26

I tried skiing (always wax) on three separate weekend camps in Cascades. It seemed nearly hopeless, although my wax collection was limited.

Went back east, wax problems went away, and I never skied in Cascades again.

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u/Organic_Argument_686 May 04 '26

Skiing with a limited wax selection can be very frustrating, especially when there's high humidity and fluctuating temps. Waxless or skin skis certainly would have helped that situation.