I will expand on your comment about lifting your snowshoe in soft snow. The best snowshoes are the largest in terms of surface area you can wear. Also these large snowshoes and footwear should be as lightweight as possible in the cold winter. The large surface area means your snowshoe floats and doesn’t sink AS MUCH, the light weight snowshoe and boot means it’s less weight for your leg muscles to have to lift with every step. I have found that moose hide moccasins are still the best foot wear for snowshoes coupled with a lamp wick harness they are warm lightweight and comfortable. A lady in Elliot Lake Northern Ontario makes traditional snowshoes but with Shark fishing monofilament fishing line instead of the babish traditional webbing. These are in my opinion the best snowshoes very lightweight and large surface area. I weighed this setup and found moccasins, harness and snowshoes weighed less than my winter boots alone. Keep up the good work Matti!
Thats a very good point! I totally missed that in my video. I see so many people who comes with too small snowshoes when they also have a to carry a heavy backpack. The small lightweight snowshoes are more or less useless if you aren't on a good trail... and on a good trail you ether don't need snowshoes or you could have been using a larger model as good as a smaller one. I would say the smallest snowshoes I want is around 75 cm (35 or 36''). Thanks for your input. / Matti
Tack Matti. Awesome presentation and just what I needed s after this winter's snow (even in Södermanland) I realised I needed snow shoes. You had the word there for the wood paint... Varnish. Great Norwegian birthing joke, much laughter. Being a Kiwi I wasn't born with them so will need to learn.
I love those OAC skis the longer ones float in bottomless snow. For climbing steep grades the traction of MSR snowshoes can't be beat! The other day my dog got stuck in deep snow off trail and I used my OAC skis to search for her where I could never have walked without them.
I would love to get one of the longer pair of Skin Based skies but... I can't buy all stuff I want to have... It's not really good for my economy ! ;-) / Matti
I hate showshoes...until I need them, then they are my good buddies. Love the idea of the skin based skis, could be the best of both worlds. Thanks, Matti!
I've done some XC ski racing and got reasonably good at waxing. But I am in the Maritimes Canada where temperatures and snow conditions often tend to change quite a bit during the day and from day to day. This means rewaxing frequently. The majority of backcountry skiers these days use a ski with a plastic base with "fish scales" on the bottom middle half. This functions similar to your skins/hair on your short skis. Similar very minimal waxing required just to keep things gliding. On trips with flats and rolling terrain but also steep hills, I have found it valuable to also take a small light pair of snowshoes for the steep up and downs for more ease and safety. I'm not that good at steep downhills with limited control when carrying a big winter backpack. Don't want to hit any trees. Those consistently doing more extensive alpine steep terrain use a wider alpine ski (at least as wide as your short skis) with full length skins for the uphills and take skins off for downhills. A specialized boot best for this is closer to a downhill boot, and bindings allow heel lift until locked down for the downhill run. (See Justin Outdoors - 4 Day Winter Camping.) So a variety of possibilities.
It's a lovely feeling when you get the feeling that you got some gliding for free... BUT it's super frustrating if that gliding is backwards when you tries to go uphill with your skies... ;-) Luckily , all over, the gliding forward is more of what you get with skiing and that's why I love my skies. / Matti
Hi Matti and Stina. Hardly a flurry here in East Kentucky USA. Crazy spring winter all season long. Maybe I get up north or in some mountains with real snow. Sad but true. Thanks for the vid. Good work. When I visit I will know something about what I need.
Thats a very important point. You should use what you like! It’s not only about what it’s best, fastest, lightest, cheapest etc. It’s a totally different feeling and sometimes you want to glide around with skies and another day you want to go around with stable snowshoes! :-) /Matti
I love my Fischer S-Bound 112's . Really good grip on the fish scale base, I only need the Easy skins for steeper terrain, but have to be pretty desperate to put them on. I have some OAC 149s but found the grip not that great. I might try wax on it, didn't realize you can wax the mohair. I wish the tips were taller on them also, they tend to dig in the bush
Hi Matti,... great walking extras, in getting around in winter... Me, I've always preferred the old wooden snowshoes for getting around. Everyone is different,... That's what makes us all unique ! Take care...❄️
I can understand you... It's a really special feeling somewhere in the heart to use the old once. I also really enjoy my old classic snowshoes. I get a touch from the past when I breaking trails with them... :-) It's really lovely that we all are different. We should all be different. I really don't like the polarization that we have in the world right now. The political polarization. We should respect each other for our different opinions and we should listen to each other. We don't need to agree and have the same opinion but we should respect each other. Take care out there and enjoy your classic snowshoes ! / Matti
Thanks for the video. I use snowshoes for camp and photography(easier to get around and do things) and skis for touring. You are absolutely right skis are so much faster for travel long distances. I also use snowshoes if I need to pull my pulka uphill. So for me they complement each other well. I tried to find ski/snowshoe hybrid Skinbased in Oslo, but no avail. They also quite expensive. Maybe if they get popular, more producers will push price down.
Hi Matti and Stina. Love your inspiring videos very much. I do bc skiing and alpine touring. I put on some snowshoes one time in my live bc I was in a group of non skiers an thought to make some new experiences - and I totally regreted - bc I could not ski down the powdery slopes I walked up 🤣 maybe around camp it would be ok for me or better taking the skinbased ... I don´t know... once at skies - forever at skies ... by the way ...I´m not Norwegian... 😂
Thanks for this very informative video Matti. "Don't keep them on the wall. Don't keep them in the basement." you say. Well, my snowshoes are in my storage unit, so I've been thinking of digging them out for a try at a solo snowshoeing camping trip in Sweden. Would a section of the Kungsleden Trail be too much for a rookie? I've done 3-day solo snowshoe camping trips in the Pyrenees and would like to do at least a week or longer in Swedish Lapland. So I thought maybe the Kungsleden Trail might be suitable? I have done lots of winter hiking/camping with ice axe/crampons etc. but would like to dig out my MSR snowshoes to use with my decent Hilleberg/PHD/Optimus Nova stove camping set up for Swedish Lapland! Any thoughts? I'd like to join one if your week-long winter camping trips Matti do learn more! Thanks for all your videos from a long-time subscriber!
I see a lot of people who make Kungsleden with snowshoes. Personal, I would prefer skies at that trail. It's usually good trail later in the season and it's places where a snowshoe hiker will dream about the gliding effect from a pair of skies... There is also hills like in Teusajaure; Vakkotavare and Aktse thats to steep and snowhoes will work fine . See you in the next video untill we meet o the trail. / Matti
I can really understand that you use this bindings ! They are amazing... First I was little bit skeptical ... but today I love the bindings. It seems like they will not break down! :-) You know, I use my skin base skies for shorter things. Making caamping spot, shorter photo tours, breaking trails for half hour and so on. I never use them like you, skiing the entire tour, day after day, so it's good input! Thanks! / Matti
That’s a very good point! The OAC 129 have no steel edge. That’s actually the ski OAC recommended for ‘dog walk’ at their home page. As you say, it’s not a good idea with steel edge when you are around dogs. /Matti
I use exactly the same Skinbased skis as you demonstrate in the video. When I use them in temperatures above 0°C the snow accumulates under the skis. Do you experience the same kind of problem?
Hey @chichi2272 ! Sorry to hear that the sticky warm snow is giving you problems. This is an issue not just limited to Skinbased skis, but nearly any form of snow transportation when traveling on a surface that is near the freezing mark. As Matti mentioned, using a wax can really help to reduce this issue. We have our own that can be found from our website, but if that's an option any liquid or paste rub on ski glide wax will work for the gliding zone. Good skin wax is tougher to find, but ours, Mountain Flow, and Nikwax all make a good product. Happy skiing!