The weather has been pretty stable and even though it got pretty warm today, Phil White reports that the snow did not heat up very much and therefore did not transform from the fresh crystals of Wednesday.
The weather looks clear and hot Friday (high 47F), so the snow may transform significantly. NOAA is predicting a Friday night low of 6F at 3AM Saturday, warming to around 20F by race start, hitting 30 by noon. There is currently a 20% chance of snow showers developing Saturday in the morning. Since the sun is not going to be blasting like on Friday, the snow should be pretty stable and stay cold during the race. Overall, looks pretty nice for racing and waxing should be easy with a lot of different combos doing pretty well.
I will be testing waxes up at Snow Mountain Friday morning and will make a report on natronnordic.com in the afternoon with those test results and some picks for Saturday's race. Right now, I still think it is a good bet to start by hardening the bases with 1-3 layers of cold wax (Swix CH4 or LF4 or LF3). My guess is that the race wax will be Swix HF6 or HF6BD with a final layer of FC1 ironed in. But testing may produce some different ideas....
Here is Phil White's report:
I tested LF6 & LF7 on 2 pr skates & 2 pr classics today. 6 ran significantly better than 7, not only in the woods, but even on the south facing hill up from Pole Crk to xc ctr, as late as 1:30! Didn't have enough skis to compare HF, my fleet went to New England for rescheduled retailer demo. Anyway, I think today FC1 turbo would have been better than FC7, and FC8 too warm. Snow stayed pretty fresh, it didn't really warm-up until 11:30-12:00.
Time Snow temp Air temp
10 -7c -7
10:15 -6 -7
10:45 -4 -5
11:15 -3 -4
11:30 -2 -3
12:00 0 -1
Temps taken in the shade
Snow crystals stayed fine even past noon, when some clouds rolled in. Tomorrow (Fri) should be warmer, so that may cook the new snow.