Altai Hok Ski Natural Brown 145cm

After four seasons, I still love these skis and they are my first choice for almost every trip. They are short, wide, lightweight, have a permanent skin and aluminum inserts for 75mm bindings and heel plates. If you are using your own bindings order the heal plate kit that comes with screws for both the heel plates and bindings. Both mount with metric screws. Screw on some bindings with a little thread locker and forget them. I have two pairs of Hoks, both the original model and the newer 2016 model. They both work well, but the 2016 (newer model) does seem to be a slight improvement. The Hoks have a wood core which I prefer to foam. I've seen too many foam core x-country skis fail back in the woods.I ski the Hoks with leather tele boots and Vole three pins with or without cables and they ski well on everything but boilerplate and hard crust. I would never ski above a cliff on hard crust on these skis. My old leather tele boots are soft so I cannot lean the ski over enough with my downhill boot to get an edge. I decreased the angle of the edges on the older pair from 90 degrees and that helps a little. I don't ski fast enough to worry about them catching. The Hoks have no camber and no wax pocket for the skin, so they can be a little slow on the flat, but slow is an advantage on a steep narrow trail. I do wish the skis had perhaps a little more side cut and maybe a smidgen of camber or wax pocket pop of the skin for some glide between kicks, but other than that they are just about perfect.The first few times I used them on a packed trail I found them a little slow on the flats but quickly grew to like the advantage of not having to put skins on and off. If you have never skied down a hill on skins, know that it can be grabby when gliding downhill compared to Ptex because of changing snow conditions.In the past I mostly skied on old (1970s Europa 99s) steel edged x-country skis with glued full length skinny skins (about 1 inch wide) or for deeper or steeper slopes, on Ramer alpine touring skis (made by Hexel) with three pin bindings and wide glue on skins. The Hoks are obviously slower than a waxed XC ski, or XC skis with skinny skins, but they have similar flotation to my 210cm xc skis but I don't have to deal with glued skins, kicker waxes and klister. About klister, the Hoks work better than klister on ice and liker most skins, they are at their best on wet snow when one would use klister. Unlike klister that iced up in the shade and picks up pine needles and debris, the Hoks' skins stay clean and do not ice if I spray them with silicone between trips or rub them with a little glide wax or paraffin.About skins vs. fish scales, skins are quieter and easier to deice. Scraping the ice out of fish scales is very tedious. Occasionally I find a skier walking a trail carrying their iced fish scales because they thought that waxless skis were waxless. They were astonished to learn that they had to put past glide wax on their scales to avoid icing.Use silicone spray or glide wax on the skins and bring a little wax in your pack to rub on the skins if they start to hold ice. Mine never never ice if I have sprayed with silicone between trips. I have stopped and helped people de-ice who used too little paste glide wax on their Hoks.I think of these skis as a cross between a snowshoe and a cross-country ski with the best features of each. They are short enough to carry on a pack without hitting the back of one's legs and the trees overhead. They do not have enough flotation for very deep powder, but otherwise they are great for bushwhacking. I ski early and late season so I bought a second pair, relegating the first to being rock skis.In the fall of 2019 I tore one of the skins which is not surprising given that I have numerous gouges in the Ptex in the rock skis and the front of the other skin started to peel, not surprising given that I spray them with silicone. I followed the instructions on the manufacturer's website and easily re-glued the tear and so far, after many trips, it has held up. Of the glues the manufacture recommends for skin repair, I prefer the GearAid (McNett) Freesole urethane glue. It doesn't have the stench of the other glues and it seems to work as well or better and it works great on boots. The manufacturer recommends using gel superglue for emergency field repairs so I carry a small tube in my pack that I have never needed.

I bought the Altai Skis in 125 cm with the Universal Bindings as a replacement for snowshoes. My expectation was to be able to hike up and into the snow with the skis on the backpack, then put on the skis when the snow starts to get deep. The promise of being able to glide down, or even to ski as demonstrated in some of the videos on Altai's home page, made me shell out the $329.Now, after several hours of use on different trails and in different snow conditions, I still like them, but find their use case a bit limited. The skis with the universal bindings work best in powder snow. Or actually, that is about the only condition in which they really work for me. With at least a few inches of powder over hardpack, I can romp up trails and hills as I expected. Whether I am able to glide down depends on the amount of powder and the steepness of the descent. In really deep powder, the skis work just like snowshoes. No gliding down, but at least walking with the skis is more comfortable than snowshoeing in my opinion.So far so good. What are the drawbacks? Well, for me the fun stops once I hit any sort of hardpack or hardpack covered by less than a couple inches of powder. I am having two issues in this kind of conditions:With hiking boots in the universal binding, I cannot get the skis onto the edge. Yes, my boots are above ankle hight. But they are not stiff like telemark boots and the Altai skis are pretty wide. So I cannot get the skis on to their edges and have pretty much no control descending hardpacked slopes or trails. Scary to say the least.Also, the skin accentuates any changes in the snow. There is a dramatic change in their ability to glide from one moment to the next when I cross a spot of hardpack, another skiers track or anything else. Hard to keep the balance.Trying push and glide technique in snow dust over hardpack conditions leads to the skins icing up frequently. Altai recommends using WD40(?!) to resolve the issue. I am experimenting with it.Update:I've replaced the Universal Binding with a 3 pin and got way better stability instantly. If a hill is steep enough and there is snow (and not just ice), I can now ski down. The 3 pin kills a bit of the flexibility I was hoping to get with the skis, but if it allows me to control the skis in a wider range of conditions, so for deep winter it is worth it. Come spring, when a hike may start on dirt and end up in the snow, I'll buy snowshoes.Verdict:Overall, the skis are still fun, but more of an extra toy than my goto gear for all winter hikes. The fill a narrow niche between XC skis and snowshoes. Great idea, but the Universal Binding needs improvement and the skins should be removable.

Hoks are a great tool for covering ground in tight woods, or varied terrain with lots of ups and downs. Many folks point out its lack of stability when skiing downhill with the universal bindings, particularly on hard pack. I had little trouble taking mine down a packed black diamond a ski area when I forgot my Alpine skis. It's even easier in the woods. These things are good in crud, and great on powder A soft pair of used $20 snowboard boots and the universal bindings are plenty to get the edges into the "loud powder" on steeps. This of course assumes you can ski downhill. As an Alpine skier, I'm still trying to get used to a backward stance using a tiak. I may never quite get there; for me, I like to earn my turns, and the advantage gained by two ski poles on the way up far outweigh the hoped-for advantage of a tiak on the way down. I'm going to give it another season before I abandon a tiak altogether. Super happy with them overall. Always carry spikes, though. For the spots where some winter scrambling is required, Hoks should be on your pack, not your feet.