Pemi Ski Loop in Less than 30 Hours :)

[DougPaul]

My trip report, part 1:

<meta comment>
This one is a bit longer than my usual reports--I hope you find it worth the effort required to wade through it.
</meta comment>

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This trip report is dedicated to Audrey who has to do her skiing vicariously these days...
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It's all Becca's fault--she posted a request to see if anyone was interested in a ski trip from Lincoln Woods to Thoreau Falls...

I had done a similar ski trip from LW to TF and back via Shoal Pond Tr back in 2003 (my so-called Pemi lollipop, 25.4mi, 2460 vert ft, 17.5 hrs) and responded. Since my recollection was that return from top of the falls region was easier via the SPT than via the TFT Becca agreed to consider return via the SPT. Besides, the SPT was also on her hit list...

In the past, Becca had turned back based upon turn-around time at 8.7 miles from the trailhead (2.1 miles into the TFT)--to perform this tour in a single push we would need to abandon turn-around times and plan on continuing into the night.

We also needed good snow conditions--there is no way a small party can do a long tour if it requires a lot of heavy trail breaking. My approach has been to wait for good conditions and then pounce... In 2003, I had 4-6 inches of fresh powder over a very firm icy crust at temps starting at -4F and finishing at 20F--perfect conditions. This time we had 1 inch of fresh snow over a semi-breakable crust at the trailhead with the hope of better higher up. The trail at the trailhead itself was hardpacked. (I had been hiking in the region two days prior and had checked the snow conditions.) I was hoping to use waxable skis for their efficiency, but the thin cover over a hardpacked and/or crusty trail suggested that waxless skis might be a safer bet. I bought both waxable and waxless skis to the trailhead and ultimately chose the waxless but also brought my wax kit. Becca had an easy choice--she only had waxless skis.

Temps were ~15F at departure, predicted to be -5F to -15F in Lincoln overnight, and predicted to be ~25F in Lincoln the next day. (Although we did not measure the temps during the tour, these predictions were probably reasonably accurate for where we were.)

We brought supplies for a long overnight tour: extra food, 2L of water each, multiple headlamps, extra batteries, insulation, emergency gear, etc. I had also preloaded the WMNF GIS tracks for the trails that we expected to travel into my GPS. (Thanks Chris for doing the work of converting them into GPX format and making them available to us.) Ideally, I would only use the GPS to record our track... In 2003, I had had only minor navigational difficulties and hadn't needed my compass or GPS for navigation.

We shouldered our too-heavy packs and started off at 9:15am on Tuesday (22 Feb). East Side Tr up to the wilderness boundary was groomed and glazed and otherwise uneventful. The section beyond was snowshoe-broken and packed to the junction with the Cedar Brook Tr. We walked the climb up to the junction and had a pleasant ski down to the site of the now-removed bridge over the Pemi. We stopped briefly so I could pay my respects to a lost friend and continued on the Wilderness Tr which was also snowshoe broken and packed. We reached the junction with the Thoreau Falls Trail and checked the Wilderness Tr to see if there were any tracks to follow on our way out--it looked like there were at least a few old ones close to the junction. We could only guess about the rest of the trail. We hung a left onto the TFT, crossed the bridge over the North Fork of the East Branch of the Pemi and continued. The trail continued to be snowshoe broken and the snow conditions continued to improve with a bit more powder over the crust. Somewhere in here, I got tired of the weak kick of the waxless skis and waxed my skis. (Blue extra wax on the entire ski, including the pattern.) My kick suddenly improved dramatically with no need for a hop and no loss of glide resulting in significantly improved efficiency--I should have done this much earlier... I convinced Becca to let me wax her skis and she too noticed a significant improvement. (We may have a new convert to waxable skis... ) We reached the point where the trail used to cross the river at 2.1 mi into the TFT--Becca's previous turn-around point. It was time for the fun to begin...

The trail corridor continued straight ahead until it vanished into the river. We headed right to where it climbed up to a higher shelf and put our skins on. We climbed up onto the shelf and continued--there were now multiple sets of tracks, but we were able to generally stay in the trail corridor until we reached a sizeable open area. This had caused me a bit of trouble in 2003, but my solution then worked now too--just head across until you reach the trees on the other side where the corridor will be easy to find. We continued to a small up-and-over (where the railroad used to cross the river to avoid a bluff), and returned to just above the river. The second up-and-over was much steeper and higher--it was high enough that we were wondering if it was the start to the climb to the top of the falls. No such luck--we descended all the way back down. (In 2003 I walked back down the up-and-overs to minimize the chance of a slide out onto the river ice. This time, the snow was too soft and deep to walk so we side-stepped much of our way back down.) The light was beginning to grow dim and we continued while looking for the turn up toward the top of the falls. (I had lost the trail here in 2003 and followed some ski marks up a gully which eventually connected with the trail.) We followed some snowshoe tracks which appeared to head up toward the top in the failing light. We fired up our headlamps and continued--the tracks did indeed lead us into the trail corridor and up to the top. The climb was steep enough to require desperate vegetation pulls to augment the grip of our skins at a few spots, but we made it. It was now almost totally dark--all we could see by natural light was the dip in the horizon known as Zealand Notch.

There were tracks all over the place and we soon lost the corridor. We searched for the stream crossing just above the falls with no luck. Then we backtracked to a point on the trail and pulled out the map and compass and followed a bearing toward the crossing. It led to a thicket which appeared to lead nowhere. Finally, we decided that time was more important than ego and pulled out the GPS--it led us through the thicket and the crossing was just beyond! We popped our skis to descend, put them back on for the crossing, and headed over. Again there were tracks all over the place and we soon lost the trail. However, having already checked our navigational egos, we pulled out the GPS and found that we had wandered to the left. We reached the signs announcing the Ethan Pond Trail a short distance later where we popped the skins and I/we? applied some violet wax for extra grip.

Side note: by now the snow had become deep (3-4ft?) with no crust.

We had briefly discussed our options: take the EPT to Rte 302 and hitchhike, go to Zealand Hut, return via the TFT, or continue down Shoal Pond Tr. Neither of us wanted to go to Rte 302 or the hut, the difficulties of the TFT did not appeal, and I remembered the SPT to be a nice and easy to navigate and ski route back toward our cars. ("Want to return via TFT?" became a running joke...) We headed east on the EPT toward the SPT junction. The EPT was ridiculously easy to follow and ski...

We reached the junction with the SPT and hung a right. The part of the SPT to the east of the pond was well traveled and easy to follow. There were several clearings where we stopped, killed the lights, and enjoyed the many stars that this suburban resident cannot normally see. Bright stars against an inky background. Near the south end of the pond, the trail takes a right-angle turn and the real fun began...

The trail corridor disappeared and we had to pull out the GPS again. IIRC, we had to dive through a thicket of spruce to continue. I'm afraid my memory of exactly what happened at each spot gets a bit fuzzy here... There were spots where the corridor was preferentially filled with young (but above one's head) spruce trees. One had to simply guess that the corridor continued through the spruce, dive in, and hope that one's guess was correct. Many sections of the trail which would have been nice easy skiing were badly postholed by moose to the point that they became difficult. On the other hand, the moose often knew where the trail was better than we did...

(continued)

 

[DougPaul]

My trip report, part 2:

The moon rose while we were somewhere on the SPT. It wasn't bright enough (near last quarter) under the tree cover to help with the navigation and travel, but it did function as a directional beacon to be kept a bit to the left of our heading. I found it to be visually distracting as it flashed on and off through the trees.

The SPT has four crossings of Shoal Pond Brook--all serious. Getting down on the ice generally required sidestepping down a steep slope and getting up the far bank was often difficult--sometimes very difficult. Fortunately the ice was strong enough to hold us. The GPS track shows that we had difficulty reacquiring the corridor following the third and fourth crossings. And there are several little "rat's nest" sections of track where we had to stop and search for the corridor. The SPT finally crosses Notch Brook (another significant crossing) at Stillwater to join the Wilderness Trail.

We got across with difficulty getting up the bank, but could not find the trails. The GPS pointed into a massive pile of spruce and spruce traps which must have held us at bay for an hour. I finally backtracked a short bit closer to where we had come up from the river, pulled out my compass and discovered that I had become turned around. (In 20-20 hindsight, checking the moon should have prevented this.) I spotted a clump of spruce in a possible corridor leading in the proper direction, Becca dove in, and shortly thereafter I heard a shout of "Signs!". I followed to the junction with the Wilderness Trail. They were only 100 or so feet away...

I think I ran out of water while searching for the signs and the WT. (If not here, it was shortly thereafter.) Becca ran out at about the same time.

We followed the WT and crossed the East Branch of the Pemi--the widest crossing of the trip. We progressed well for a short distance and the trail once again disappeared in open woods... We were at the top of a bluff and and the GPS said that the trail paralleled our track off to the right which meant below a steep slope/cliff. But there was no visible spot for a trail to drop down. We could see a shelf below where a trail might go but still could find no safe way down. We must have searched around for another hour or so--I was beginning to wonder if we needed a rope to rappel down... Eventually we backtracked farther than the GPS indicated and Becca spotted a possible trail corridor--a steeply descending traverse down a steep snow slope. (Steep enough to avalanche...) Naturally, it had a set of animal tracks (fox?) coming up it... I side-stepped down carefully--Becca waited for me to clear and followed. (We wanted to stay spread out to minimize the chance of triggering an avalanche.) I wasn't sure we could get back up if we needed to retreat...

Down below Becca found a good-looking corridor. The GPS indicated that the trail was about 100 ft to the left of Becca's corridor. I followed the GPS trail while Becca followed the corridor--after a while it became obvious that Becca's corridor was the correct one and I was following an offset of the corridor due to a GPS position error. (We were in moderate tree cover below the bluff which presumably caused the GPS error.)

Thirst was beginning to raise its ugly head. (We also had to stop eating because digestion consumes water.)

The sky started to brighten as we followed the corridor. Travel was now fairly easy as we came out to a shelf above the East Branch of the Pemi. We followed the shelf through a haze of thirst until we reached Crystal Brook. It, unfortunately, was not adequately bridged and we both had to remove our skis and step in deep snow with water underneath and got some water on/in our boots which rapidly froze. It was also not a good candidate for filling water bottles for the same reason. I was slowing down from a combination of dehydration and fatigue.

We passed the junction with the TFT. Dehydration was becoming a serious concern and Becca tried filling the bottles from a seep crossing the trail, but was only able to get a small amount of silt flavored water. We drank it.

We reached the bridge site and the junction with the Cedar Brook Tr. Only 5.7 mi to go. And up to the junction with the East Side Tr. We again walked the steep start of the EST to the flats below. It has been a long time since I have been this thirsty... Finally, we reached Cedar Brook and refilled both body and bottles. We could eat again.

I was slowing down even more, but now it was just fatigue. 3.9 mi of putting one ski in front of the other with some short rests tossed in for good measure. The snow was becoming increasingly glazed and dirty (twigs, bark, etc) which caused an annoying amount of drag as my ski kicker patterns passed over it. The two small hills on the trail seemed to have grown since we had come in. As we got within a mile or so of the parking lot we met a number of walkers on the trail and even a few skiers. And finally the parking lot at 1:45pm, Wednesday (23 Feb).

And then there was the drive home...

A few notes:
* We used a stop every hour (by the clock) to eat and drink protocol. I have found it to be effective, particularly when skiing.
* The skiing was generally easy, but long. I like routes like this--they give one a deep immersion in the BC and they generally have a low risk of injury deep in the BC. They require efficiency and endurance rather than expert skiing skills.
* The removal of the suspension bridge over the Pemi made this trip harder than it used to be.
* The wait for good conditions and pounce strategy worked well both for this and my 2003 tours--trail breaking was only a minor issue both times.
* Blazes were sparse and haphazard on the TFT and SPT. Becca was better at spotting blazes, I was better at spotting corridors. Our complementary skills made for a good team.
* Navigation presented us with a series of problems, fortunately one at a time. And fortunately we were able to solve each one of them and continue although some of them consumed significant amounts of time.
* In 2003, I hadn't needed the GPS. This time, we probably would have had to turn back if we hadn't brought a GPS with the WMNF GIS trail tracks loaded into it, due to the difficulty of following the reduced maintenance Wilderness trails in winter.
* We provisioned our cars with extra food, water, and caffeine to aid our respective drives home. Had we gotten off the trail in closer to my predicted 20 hours, very few stores would have been open. The drive home was probably the most dangerous part of the trip.
* GPS stats: 27.6 tot miles, 28:30 total time, 17:31 moving time, 1.6 mph moving speed, accum climb (forgot to record--2460 ft from the WMG)
* Becca was a great partner! I'd happily do something similar with her again. After a bit of rest, of course...

Doug

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

Wonderful detailed trip report, Doug! What a fine adventure! Congrats to both you and Becca.

As I mentioned in Becca's "Events" thread, a group that I co-established in the mid-1980s is planning its annual Pemi ski-through on Saturday, March 5th (they did not get the desired weather and snow conditions three weeks ago).

Our point-to-point route from north to south, using a car spot, is much easier than the loop skied by Becca and Doug: up Zealand Road, through Zealand Notch (no stopping at Zool hut!), then either Thoreau Falls (~21 miles total) or Shoal Pond Trail (~23 miles total), to the WT, and out the East Side Trail.

Because we never got the snow conditions needed last year, our group has never finished via the East Side Trail (i.e., we always had the luxury of the suspension bridge, which in the past meant only a 30-40 min ski out to Lincoln Woods depending on snow conditions).

I cannot go this year as I continue recovery from a ruptured disk in my lower back, but if you are interested in this trip, please send me a PM, and I will connect you with this year's organizer, who probably will want to screen for experience, etc.

 

[RoySwkr]

It must have been Phil Preston I was talking to about skiing the North Fork, although White Mountains West only talks about the other direction:
"The Thoreau Falls Trail is too steep to ski in the vicinity of the falls. Anyone coming through Zealand Notch and continuing on this trail can avoid that difficult area by following Whitewall Brook from the south outlet of Zealand Pond. However, this route is only recommended in mid-winter when the brook can be skiied upon...
At the confluence of Whitewall Brook and the North Fork, the Thoreau Falls Trail is within one hundred yards diagonally uphill on the left bank."

His 1979 take on the Shoal Pond Trail is that it may be hard to find the N end if the junction signs are buried and you may need a compass to find the pond, but he says nothing about the old RR section below. From a fall hike I seem to remember that there must have been some long trestles as you might be off the grade quite awhile before getting back on.

An example they used for Wilderness trail maintenance a few years back was that blowdowns on the old RR sections were only to be cut the width of the footway not the width of the railroad, and if nearby the cuts were to be staggered to break up the long straight pathways - good if you're trying to restore natural look, bad if you're trying to follow it.

I have always been suspicious of GPS accuracy in following hiking trails because the normal error range can put you on the other side of a brook or cliff, seems like that bit you once but overall worked well.

 

[dr_wu002]

His 1979 take on the Shoal Pond Trail is that it may be hard to find the N end if the junction signs are buried and you may need a compass to find the pond, but he says nothing about the old RR section below. From a fall hike I seem to remember that there must have been some long trestles as you might be off the grade quite awhile before getting back on.

An example they used for Wilderness trail maintenance a few years back was that blowdowns on the old RR sections were only to be cut the width of the footway not the width of the railroad, and if nearby the cuts were to be staggered to break up the long straight pathways - good if you're trying to restore natural look, bad if you're trying to follow it.

I have always been suspicious of GPS accuracy in following hiking trails because the normal error range can put you on the other side of a brook or cliff, seems like that bit you once but overall worked well.

The bog bridges on the North end are rotting and it is very wet in there. Once they're gone that trail will essentially be impassable during the summer months.

-Dr. Wu

 

[DougPaul]

It must have been Phil Preston I was talking to about skiing the North Fork, although White Mountains West only talks about the other direction:
"The Thoreau Falls Trail is too steep to ski in the vicinity of the falls. Anyone coming through Zealand Notch and continuing on this trail can avoid that difficult area by following Whitewall Brook from the south outlet of Zealand Pond. However, this route is only recommended in mid-winter when the brook can be skiied upon...
At the confluence of Whitewall Brook and the North Fork, the Thoreau Falls Trail is within one hundred yards diagonally uphill on the left bank."

We did see ski tracks out on the river for quite a distance, but I can't remember exactly where it was. (It was on the way in.) Perhaps Becca has a better recollection of where we saw it. One of us (Becca, I think) did make a comment noting their presence.

His 1979 take on the Shoal Pond Trail is that it may be hard to find the N end if the junction signs are buried and you may need a compass to find the pond, but he says nothing about the old RR section below. From a fall hike I seem to remember that there must have been some long trestles as you might be off the grade quite awhile before getting back on.

The junction signs were well above the snow and trivial to find. The WMG talks about the trail following a variety of RR beds and logging roads. I didn't attempt to track down any details, but there had to be at least five bridges at the stream crossings along the trail.

An example they used for Wilderness trail maintenance a few years back was that blowdowns on the old RR sections were only to be cut the width of the footway not the width of the railroad, and if nearby the cuts were to be staggered to break up the long straight pathways - good if you're trying to restore natural look, bad if you're trying to follow it.

I don't recall observing this. If it caused any problems, I didn't attribute them to such a cause. (IMO, it's a trail. You're not fooling anyone--just admit it.)

I have always been suspicious of GPS accuracy in following hiking trails because the normal error range can put you on the other side of a brook or cliff, seems like that bit you once but overall worked well.

There was the one case where the GPS error was big enough to be observable (an error of less then 100ft in open woods below a bluff)--the rest of time it unerringly led us back to the trail when we strayed. Its ability to accurately tell us where the track was saved us considerable time in multiple instances. And we likely never would have found where the trail dropped over the bluff without it. (The bluff doesn't even show up on the 24K USGS topo nor is the dropoff mentioned in the WMG.)

In the one case where we observed the GPS error, it wasn't hard to figure out what was happening*. Most of the time, it essentially directed us right to the corridor--ie errors of less than 10 ft. (Note that this is in the context of having the WMNF GIS tracks--knowing where you are with this level of accuracy is only useful if you know the location of the trail (or target location) to similar levels of accuracy. The trail-line as drawn on the WMG maps and USGS topos is far less accurate.) And when we were off trail it always correctly told us which way to turn to find it--I would give Becca directions such as "30 feet to the left" and she would head over and find a trail approximately 30 feet to our left. (The problem finding the Wilderness Tr at Stillwater was my error, not the GPS. It was solved by combining GPS and compass.)

* Part of the skill in using any tool is knowing and being able to recognize its limitations.

When we used M&C, we were hampered by the fact that we did not know exactly where we were so it required a significant element of guesswork to get an estimated heading and an estimated distance. (I estimated the heading correctly to the steam crossing, but not the distance--we stopped at an unpromising--looking thicket. The map indicated that the trail was a dogleg.) A GPS can do something no M&C can do: tell you where you are to a very high level of accuracy with no prior information or surrounding context information in any visibility conditions. (Of course we had a general idea of where we were, but there were few-to-no landmarks to sight on in the dark.)

Note: With the possible exception of finding the stream crossing at the top of the TFT, all of our navigational problems were very local. We were rarely more that 100ft from the trail. We both had the general route memorized--the only time I pulled the map out was at the top of the TFT to get the compass bearing.

Background: I carried the WMG map, a trail distance chart, copies of the TFT and SPT trail descriptions from the WMG, a good sighting compass + 2 simple spares, a 60CSx GPS loaded with 24K topos and WMNF GIS trail tracks, lots of spare batteries, and my memories from 2003. I didn't ask Becca what she carried. She did have a SPOT and managed to successfully send three messages from clearings. You will have to ask her for details.

The trail distance chart:

Thoreau Falls-Shoal Pond lollipop               From WMG 28th ed, 2007
=============================================================================
   Trail                 Dist    Accum           Vert    Accum        WMG pg
Pemi East Side Tr       5.1 mi   5.1 mi         900 ft   900 ft         203
Cedar Brook Tr           .6 mi   5.7 mi                  900 ft         230
Wilderness Tr            .9 mi   6.6 mi         600 ft  1500 ft         200
Thoreau Falls Tr        5.1 mi  11.7 mi         750 ft  2250 ft         213
Ethan Pond Tr            .5 mi  12.2 mi          50 ft  2300 ft         194
Shoal Pond Tr           4.0 mi  16.2 mi          50 ft  2350 ft         214
Wilderness Tr           3.5 mi  19.7 mi                 2350 ft         200
Cedar Brook Tr           .6 mi  20.3 mi          60 ft  2410 ft         230
Pemi East Side Tr       5.1 mi  25.4 mi          50 ft  2460 ft         203
=============================================================================

Doug

 

[Becca M]

Re: the ski tracks on the North Fork: wherever the trail came close to the actual trail it was VERY obviously skied (to me). Initially, around 2.2 mi north of the south bridge, I'm pretty sure I saw ski tracks all the way up until we left it for the final ascent. Some of the ski tracks could have been skinned ascents around the middle (north to south) of the trail.

Also, I carried a WMG map, trail descriptions, another GPS (same model as Doug', but without the trail .GPx's), and a compass.

 

[RoySwkr]

Thoreau Falls-Shoal Pond lollipop               From WMG 28th ed, 2007
=============================================================================
   Trail                 Dist    Accum           Vert    Accum        WMG pg
Pemi East Side Tr       5.1 mi   5.1 mi         900 ft   900 ft         203
Cedar Brook Tr           .6 mi   5.7 mi                  900 ft         230
Wilderness Tr            .9 mi   6.6 mi         600 ft  1500 ft         200
Thoreau Falls Tr        5.1 mi  11.7 mi         750 ft  2250 ft         213
Ethan Pond Tr            .5 mi  12.2 mi          50 ft  2300 ft         194
Shoal Pond Tr           4.0 mi  16.2 mi          50 ft  2350 ft         214
Wilderness Tr           3.5 mi  19.7 mi                 2350 ft         200
Cedar Brook Tr           .6 mi  20.3 mi          60 ft  2410 ft         230
Pemi East Side Tr       5.1 mi  25.4 mi          50 ft  2460 ft         203
=============================================================================

I was a little suspicious of the elevation gain on the first part of the hike - people run this river so it should not be much over 100'/mi. You used the total not incremental for Wilderness Trail - not sure what happened with East Side Trail.

Pemi East Side Tr 5.1 mi 5.1 mi 600 ft 600 ft 204
Wilderness Tr .9 mi 6.6 mi 100 ft 700 ft 202

Unfortunately I couldn't find a way to make Thoreau Falls less steep

 

[DougPaul]

I was a little suspicious of the elevation gain on the first part of the hike - people run this river so it should not be much over 100'/mi. You used the total not incremental for Wilderness Trail - not sure what happened with East Side Trail.

Pemi East Side Tr 5.1 mi 5.1 mi 600 ft 600 ft 204
Wilderness Tr .9 mi 6.6 mi 100 ft 700 ft 202

Unfortunately I couldn't find a way to make Thoreau Falls less steep

Thanks--I made those mistakes while "correcting" the table after the trip.

The table that we carried listed only 600 ft for the Pemi East Side Tr (ingress) and 750 ft for the the TFT for a total of 1350 ft.

The newly corrected (and hopefully correct) table:

Thoreau Falls-Shoal Pond lollipop               From WMG 28th ed, 2007
=============================================================================
   Trail                 Dist    Accum           Vert    Accum          WMG
Eastside Tr             5.1 mi   5.1 mi         600 ft   600 ft         203
Cedar Brook Tr           .6 mi   5.7 mi                  600 ft         230
Wilderness Tr            .9 mi   6.6 mi         100 ft   700 ft         200
Thoreau Falls Tr        5.1 mi  11.7 mi         750 ft  1450 ft         213
Ethan Pond Tr            .5 mi  12.2 mi          50 ft  1500 ft         194
Shoal Pond Tr           4.0 mi  16.2 mi          50 ft  1550 ft         214
Wilderness Tr           3.5 mi  19.7 mi                 1550 ft         200
Cedar Brook Tr           .6 mi  20.3 mi          60 ft  1610 ft         230
Eastside Tr             5.1 mi  25.4 mi          50 ft  1660 ft         203
=============================================================================

Fortunately the inflated numbers on the published table did not make the tour any harder...

Doug

 

[DougPaul]

A loose end...

I raised the issue of which skis to use: waxable for their efficiency or waxless for their tolerance of the glazed snow near the trailhead and possible crust farther in at the cost of lower efficiency.

The waxless skis had been hotwaxed with Swix F4 lightly fluoridated univeral glide wax prior to the trip.

As noted earlier, I chose the waxless skis. As it turned out, they worked out well by the combination of a few details and the fact that I waxed them once we were past the glazed trail (the first and last 3 mi on the Pemi East Side Tr). The secondary camber on my waxless skis is just a bit too strong for optimum BC use--I have to hop a bit during my kick to optimize the grip. (This is OK at a groomed area with a light pack but costs too much energy for a long tour with a heavy BC pack.) However, this strong camber allows the skis to glide pretty well (by keeping the pattern off the snow when gliding).

When I initially waxed the skis with blue extra (on a packed powder surface), the kick improved, I didn't need to hop, and the glide was undamaged*. (The temp was probably ~15F.) Shortly thereafter, we applied the same wax to Becca's skis and she observed a similar improvement. Later on (IIRC on SPT, probably colder temp) I added a thin layer of purple to strengthen the kick which also worked well.

* In 20-20 hindsight, it would have been better to wax them at the wilderness boundary (3 mi in) or perhaps even at the trailhead.

So, in effect, I had the best of both worlds--waxless where I needed it and waxable where I didn't. (However, it is quite possible that purple might have gripped adequately on the glazed section and I would have been OK for the entire tour with the waxable skis.)

Had I chosen the waxable skis, I could have used my kicker skins to give me a good kick on bad snow, however, they drag badly on icy surfaces and may have a noticeable drag on good snow.

In 2003, I used my waxable skis starting with green special at a temp of -4F (on the groomed Lincoln Woods Tr) and finishing with purple special at a temp of 20F. I worked my way up through the waxes by putting on softer waxes as the temps rose.

FWIW, my wax kit contains all waxes from Swix green special (cold, hard) to Swix red special (warmer, softer) traditional Nordic kick waxes.

FWIW2:
* The Swix traditional Nordic kick wax (Vxx) color sequence is: polar (-22 -- +5F), green special (5--12F), green (9--19F), blue special (16--23F), blue (18--27F), blue extra (19--32F), violet special (30--32F), violet (32F), violet extra (32--34F), red special (30--36F), red (32--38F), red extra (34--38F). (Temp ratings from http://www.rei.com/product/454021.)
* Compact summary: polar, green, blue, purple, red. Extra=slightly softer (warmer), special=slightly harder (colder).
* Note: the temp ranges are just guidelines for new snow (use warmer wax for old snow)--I normally use a softer wax than indicted by these ratings.

FWIW3: If the snow is good (ie cold, dry, powder to packed powder), I prefer waxable skis. If the snow is bad (wet, crusty, refrozen) I use waxless skis because waxing tends to be difficult under these conditions.

Doug