Christos Dimitrakakis wrote:
Hello, I have to admit that I am extremely confused as to what type of ski
I would need to buy. The basic question is what type of ski I should buy
for wandering around the snow with my skis.

I had been introduced to skiing via the alpine downhill skiing route, with
the standard relatively wide fixed-binding, plastic boot, metal-edged
skis. I skied around 10 times before deciding that I really hated
spending 90% of my time on freezing lifts and the rest 10% on extremely
steep downhill tracks. I guess those are called 'Alpine' skis.

Then I discovered cross-country skiing (the standard olympic type) and
I've had a lot of fun with it, mostly with skate-type skis. I love the
movement, the soft boots, the light skis, but it seems pretty much
impossible to go downhill on anything more than the gentlest slopes. I
think those are called 'XC' and 'Skate' skis, or occasionally 'Nordic'
skis.

I've also tried ski touring once and I loved the concept - the skis
resembled more the traditional alpine skis, with almost exactly the same
boot, a fixed/release binding, wide edged skis and skins. I think those
are actually called "AT" skis, or "skis de rando" I think the Fischer AMC
skis are of this type. However I found going downhill with such skis
a bit uncomfortable as they are far too heavy.

Then I've seen a few other types which seem to be somewhere between XC and
AT skis.. i.e. Fischer seems to have the S-Bound series (i.e. Outbound
Crown which seems to be a waxless ski) and the Backcountry series (i.e.
Country Crown, which seems to be a waxless ski). It also seems that you
are supposed to be wearing those skis with relatively soft leather boots -
slightly harder than skating boots, but much softer than AT boots. The
equipment is also much much much cheaper.

So am I a bit confused. I'd like to have, apart from my skating skis, a
pair of skis that can be used relatively well in either a track or
off-piste. Tackling very steep downhills will not be necessary.
I guess I could go and rent a couple of different types of equipment this
season to see what is best for me, but other than that, do you have some
further advice so that I can narrow down choice?

Thanks,
Christos

As you have noticed in the various replies, everybody has a different
slant on XC/backcountry skiing. I think this is because they (we) are
all rugged individualists!
For my 2 cents (American idiom meaning my reply may have little value)
1) The skis need to match up to the type of snow you have in your
area; ie; mostly dry/powdery, mostly wet, mostly (shudder) icy, etc.
2) The wider (80mm or so) skis float better in totally unused trails
(ie; wandering through the woods in deep snow, but the glide is poor (I
got rid of my Fischer Outtabounds for this reason). Wide skis also like
to skid sideways a lot more!
3) For me the glide is what it is about and with crummy glide they are
just long snow shoes.
4) Very narrow skis, typically for racing (less than 50mm) glide very
well, but need prepared tracks or groomed wide flat areas for skating.
5) Speaking of skating, lots of glide, the racers like it because it is
10% or so faster, but forget hiking trails or anything ungroomed (except
in rarish strong crust snow that you can skate on top of it all).
6) Classic skiing (striding) lets you go anywhere. Waxless has
considerably less glide but very little prep time (yes you still need to
put something on for glide and to prevent icing, but this can be easy
liquid stuff). Wax type use glide wax front and back, with special grip
wax in the center. New in the past couple years wax grip tape also
works very well, lasts hundreds of km, has a very wide temp range, and
was what finally worked for me and wax.
7) Steel edges have some advantage; protect the bottoms somewhat over
roots and low snow, can give you some edge grip (but nothing like
alpine!). I would only bother if you were doing backcountry backpacking.