Booker Bense
_ Any ski that can't be waxed is just a snowshoe with delusions
of grandeur.

Nonsense. Unwaxed "waxless" skis beat snowshoes with ease in
speed, dexterity and efficiency. Not to mention fun. And with
a wide margin on all points.

_ You're talking about skis and conditions that really have
no parallel to us North Americans. The only 280cm skis you can
get in the USA are jumping skis. For the conditions you
describe, tight trees and deep snow, I would think a 280cm
ski would be very difficult to maneuver, waxed or unwaxed.

As I said, the backcountry forest skis come in different
lenghts, current ones typically 210 to 280cm, all of
these nowadays 7cm wide. For the conditions that I
described, steep and small-scale, I prefer my 225cm shorties,
although 250cm is still manageable for me (177cm tall). I find
that heel turns and fishbone - the factors limiting the
mobility of longer skis - are still practical with 250cm.

Longer skis yet (even 300+cm) are markedly more efficient in
easier (ie less steep, more open) terrain in deep soft snow
conditions. In easier terrain glide waxing helps too, btw. The
soft snow doesn't need to be that thick in order for the longer
skis to pay off - two feet is plenty enough.

My point about waxing making skis more slippery and thus more
difficult to handle in steep small-scale terrain is entirely
unrelated to ski-lenght, however, as it affects handling in
a completely different way.

For open fjelds (gently rolling mountains) with packed
snow, telemark/"backcountry" skis are often used over here
too: stiffer, shorter, steel edged. Forest skis are quite usable
in the fjelds too, however, although the lack of steel edges can
be a problem.

The other solution to this problem I've seen is the Siberian
one of very wide ( 100mm + ) and relatively short skis.

Such skis are used in Finland too, but aren't very common.
I've got a pair of Karhu's Jakt ('hunting') skis 170cm x
12cm, iirc. They resemble the (shoter) Karhu Metas(?) sold
in NA, but come with fishscale rather than permanent skins.
Such skis are rather similar in dimension to ancient ones
found in archeological excavations, and represent an early
part part of the evolution from snow shoes to short skis to
unequal lenght skis (long glide ski and short skinned kick ski
(kalhu& lyly)) to equal lenght cambered modern skis.

Wide and fat was much easier to manufacture with primitive
means, and, more relevant to modern times, requires much
less skill from the skier. But, they are easily outperformed
by a reasonably skilled skier on proper (longer) skis in
practically any terrain.

There are several problems with short&fat: The biggest one is the
lack of end flex: a short ski simply can't flex that much. Firstly,
the lack of flex tends to result in noseplants in rough terrain,
as the tips submerge and get stuck rather than bend over an obstacle.
This is very obvious with XC-track skis in rough off-trail too,
btw. Secondly, submersion of stiff tips severly hurts practical
flotation when opening track - again, rather the same as with small
XC skis. In addition, more snow has to be displaced with wide&short
than with long&thin with similar surface pressure, so opening track
is heavier with thick shorties for this reason too. Otoh, thick&fat
of course outperforms small XC-track skis in opening track due to
the better flotation allowed by the lower surface pressure.