>>2848378I'm not a pro by any means but some thoughts having started on nordic/xc and alpine about 4 years ago. I've really gravitated towards shorter and wider nordic skis, like some anons have already said, plus 3 pin metal bindings and sometimes even a leather telemark boot depending on where I'm going. I want to try removable cables as well, just never have. Clothing is whatever warm layers I'm liking. I live in a really hilly and wooded area of Idaho without a lot of options for groomed trails, but loads of forest roads. Sometimes I get vibe-checked for some kind of casual for not using an alpine touring rig, but that would be massively overkill for where I like to go, and I couldn't glide fast where it's more level. Yet, long and skinny track skis have me crossing my fingers and praying when it gets a little steep. So, I've really found a niche that works well for me
As an aside, my experience with skiing has been really similar to cycling. For many decades all the attention was really on the sport/performance side of things (road bike, long track ski) which is cool, it's fun to go fast. But the realm of just tooling around in the woods where it's a bit steep, but yet not quite a fucking mountain at tree line, has been sort of glazed over. Now, unlike a few decades ago, there are a lot of very fractured out, specialized niches of equipment for any scenario, so it's sort of a consoomer's paradise if you want to go that route. But, luckily for the frugal /out/ists, there's also a lot of older stuff that's incredibly cheap and not fussy. I'm happy for you anon, I wish there was more xc ski chatter on here and /n/