Boulder Mountain Tour
Feb 5, 2011
10AM start with waves following
Forecast
Click here for the latest weather forecast from NOAA
Thursday Afternoon: Mostly sunny, with a high near 33. North northeast wind around 6 mph.
Thursday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 20. North northwest wind between 5 and 9 mph.
Friday: A 20 percent chance of snow. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 37. North northwest wind between 7 and 10 mph.
Friday Night: A 20 percent chance of snow. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 21. Light wind becoming northwest between 10 and 13 mph. Winds could gust as high as 21 mph.
Saturday: A 40 percent chance of snow. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 33. Northwest wind around 8 mph. New snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible.
Today we tested at Prairie Creek at about the 10km mark. There was a huge inversion with temps at just above 0F in town, but 16F at Prairie Creek. Snow temp was -10C when we started testing at 10:15 and -4C when we packed up at 12:30.
Test Results
| Rank |
Base1 |
Time |
% back |
Confidence |
| 1 |
SkiGo LF Graphite/Matrix Blue |
11.31 |
0.00% |
61.13% |
| 2 |
SkiGo HF Violet |
0.03 |
0.27% |
54.29% |
| 3 |
Swix HF7 |
0.04 |
0.33% |
70.48% |
| 4 |
Matrix Blue |
0.09 |
0.83% |
13.13% |
| 5 |
SkiGo HF Blue |
0.10 |
0.88% |
24.97% |
| 6 |
Matrix Black/Blue |
0.10 |
0.91% |
20.63% |
| 7 |
Swix LF6 |
0.13 |
1.14% |
6.21% |
| 8 |
Matrix Red |
0.46 |
4.03% |
83.30% |
Test Fleet 2
| Rank |
Base1 |
Time |
% back |
Confidence |
| 1 |
Start HF80 |
11.17 |
0.00% |
99.98% |
| 2 |
Swix HF4 |
0.06 |
0.54% |
94.13% |
| 3 |
Swix HFBW6 |
0.16 |
1.43% |
51.47% |
| 4 |
Innovax Beta Cold |
0.20 |
1.77% |
8.76% |
| 5 |
Swix LF6 |
0.51 |
4.55% |
85.93% |
Discussion
The conditions were amazing today and if things hold up as forecast, it will be fantastic on course. The course is very hard, old transformed snow. There was a big inversion today with temps cold in town but much warmer as we went up toward Galena. The snow seems consistent all along the course with the shady sections having snow that is a little more aggressive, sunny sections were a bit wetter and warmer.
We ran a test fleet of eight and I worked with the guys from Aceco Finite Finish ski tools on their fleet of 5 skis. The results were a bit weird, but we found two distinct conclusions:
- A hard underlayer is very important.
- High Fluoro top coats are important.
We ran a test with one pair with Holmenkol Matrix Blue and another pair with the same on top of SkiGo LF Graphite. The LF Graphite underneath sped up by about 1%, which is a huge difference on skis. We can usually feel a difference of about 0.25% and a 1% difference is very noticeable. So, given that hard underlayers were improving things, we heartily recommend the LF Graphite as the base layer.
For the other results, it seems that SkiGo HF Violet won the paraffin test with Start HF80, Swix HF7, Holmenkol Matrix Blue and Swix HF4 all reasonably close as well.
Recommendation
SkiGo LF Graphite and Holmenkol waxes are available for sale in Ketchum and Hailey at Sturtevants. They will have SkiGo HF Violet Friday afternoon. Nathan Schultz is doing wax clinics as Sturtevants in Hailey Thursday from 4:30-6:30 and in the Ketchum store at 2PM Friday.
Prepare skis by brushing and cleaning with a fluoro cleaner (glide wax cleaner, not kick wax solvent) or hot scrape with a warm wax.
Base Layer: SkiGo LF Graphite ironed in at 145-150C, cool, scrape brush well with steel brush.
Base Paraffin: SkiGo HF Violet, Swix HF7 or Holmenkol Matrix Blue
We will test fluoro top coats Friday morning and publish results Friday mid-day.
note: BNS imports Holmenkol and SkiGo waxes, and also sells waxes from Swix, Toko, Rode, Solda, Rex, Guru, Innovax, Magnar and others. We search for the fastest waxes for our customers and our testing is professional, objective and transparent. We make our best effort to test what we think is the best from each brand. However, given that we are testing more options from Holmenkol and SkiGo, there is a bias toward those brands. With this full disclosure, you can assess the legitimacy of our testing yourself. Visit Swix and Toko for their official recommendations. If you have any questions please contact us.