Notes on Ski Waxing雪具上蠟筆記

I spent a weekend in Canaan Valley, West Virginia taking a telemark workshop offered by North American Telemark Organization (NATO) in January. We were supposed to learn backcountry techniques, but there was no snow left in the woods. It was even pouring the first day, and our clothes were twice as heavy as they used to be after the class.

Nevertheless Dickie Hall, the founder of NATO, still taught us ski waxing. Ski waxes are marked by colors: blue, red, green, and so on. They might be soft and sticky or hard. You apply different waxes on your skis based on the snow condition.

Dickie taught us a quick simple way to identify the snow condition, which is to make a snowball. A snowball can be dry and easy to break, dry but stay contingent, wet but doesn’t leave a trace on your gloves, or damp and you can see water residue on your gloves. The art of ski waxing is to generate a mapping table between the status of the snowball and the color code of the wax. (I wish I could provide you the table here, but I only brought my skis but not a pen and a notebook.)

If you apply the right wax to your skis, you should be able to climb uphill by doing switchbacks. But if you want to climb straight up, then you have to use climb skin, it turns your skis into snowshoes.

I totally agreed with what Dickie described about the charm telemark skiing provides. You can take your telemark skis, go to a near-by hill, ski up and ski down. You will probably be the first people ski the hill and your next ski route will never repeat the previous one. I can only imagine it right now, but even so it soothes my adventurous mind.

According to sale numbers, the population of telemark skiers is growing. The only complaint that I have is that it is still not big enough in the mid-Atlantic area. I took two workshops this year: one was in Vermont and the other one was in West Virginia. Both took me a good six hours of driving one way. Luckily the quality of the lessons was really good, worth the driving. I recommend people who are thinking of taking telemark lessons to check out NATO.


一月份的時候，參加了由北美Telemark（NATO）組織開授的週末兩天課程。原本課程的設計是著重在野外滑雪的技巧的，偏偏今年的冬天太暖，樹林裡的雪都融化了。甚至連第一天的課程都是在大雨滂沱的情況下進行的。當天的課程結束後，每天所著衣服的重量，平地就添了兩倍。

儘管如此，創辦NATO的Dickie Hall仍然教授了為雪具上蠟的知識。基本上來說，各種不同的蠟，會以不同的顏色標示；有的蠟軟綿綿、有的蠟黏搭搭、有的蠟則是硬梆梆。而該用什麼顏色的蠟，端看當天的雪況而定。

Dickie說，一個簡單快速的判別雪況的方式，就是以雙手捧雪製作一個雪球。雪球的狀態可以是：乾而容易碎裂、乾但是雪球形狀完整、濕但是沒有沾濕手套、濕地很且在手套上留下水漬等。而雪具上蠟的藝術，就是在腦中將不同的雪球狀態，和蠟的顏色標示連結起來。（可惜這裡沒有辦法提供這個對照表，去上課的時候，只帶了雪具，卻沒帶紙筆）

如果給雪具上正確的蠟，就可以穿著雪具以Z字形的方式，朝山頭往上爬。但是如果想要以最短的距離衝上山頂，恐怕就需要為雪具套上攀爬用的「climb skin」，套上之後，就可以把雪具當雪鞋來用了。

Dickie當天說了Telemark ski的魅力所在，讓人相當神往。試想你可以帶著你的telemark雪具，到家附近的小山丘，用該雪具爬上且滑下，搞不好你可以宣稱你是在該山丘滑雪的第一人。而下一次再去滑雪，使用的旅徑，也不會跟上一次重複。雖然現在我光只能想像此情此景，卻似乎也可以安撫想要冒險遊玩的心。

根據銷售數字的統計，telemark ski在美國的人口似乎以很快的速度在成長中。我唯一的抱怨則是，這個運動似乎在mid-Atlantic地區還不夠大。這個冬季我總共上了兩次課程，一次在Vermont，另一次則是在West Virginia，每次我都要花六個小時開車，而這只是單程的時間。幸好，課程的內容相當充實，開那麼久的車也算是划算了。如果你也想要學telemark，NATO或許是你不錯的選擇。