Once again it is that time of year. The days are getting longer, the sun is getting warmer and your skis are getting heavier.  No matter what type of gear you are riding, after 4 months of touring your set up should start feeling lighter but instead it feels heavier.  The reason is, well, because it is heavier!!  The culprit is a differential in snow temperatures that cause snow to stick to the top sheet of your skis and to your skins.  Waxing of skins is usually effective to minimize snow stick to your skins if you catch it early but I have never found a way to eliminate top sheet snow-stick.  Have you?

Snow stick season!!!

I’ve tried waxing, I’ve tried paint-thinner, I’ve tried new skis, even snowboarding, I’ve left  my skis outside overnight and pretty much everything else but I still get snow-stick.  The only thing that seems to help is scrapping the top sheet of my skis as I skin up and eventually I hit that optimum elevation (snow temperature) that I no longer get stick.  On Wednesday, the first “spring day,” while touring near Whitewater I found myself attempting to scrape my skis with my pole.  This left me frustrated and it dawned on me that this seems to occur to me every spring.

As I continued to annoyingly skin up, I wondered:  Why don’t poles have scrappers at the end of the handle?  Seems like a good idea. I’m sure I’m not the first one to think of this??

That night I came home and before hanging my gear to dry, I was in the work shop modifying my poles.   In 10 minutes I had a solid metal scrapper on the end of each pole.

Simple system: cut metal ruler, sliced pole handle and super glue

I used an old metal ruler, cut it with tin-snips, sliced the top of my ski pole and superglued the ruler in place.  I used these items, simply because they are the first thing I found.  Epoxy glue would be better and perhaps a plastic scrapper?

Final 10min Product

Skinning up is so much more enjoyable without snow-stick

I’m now looking forward to my next day touring and that inevitable build-up of snow on my skis, I’ll be scrapping mid-stride with a smile on my face.

I hope this helps others who hate this problem as much as I do.

Let it snow