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skiing over diesel soaked straw might be a good way to reduce the pine tar build up but Never I repeat NEVER use any kind of petrol based fuel on your ptex.
Spend a few bucks on base cleaner or use an orange oil based cleaner

For po'boy structuring I use a (NEW) bras bbq grill brush, $5 at any hardware store. steel would work but likley to scratch too deep. Maybe start with steel brush, diaganol cross hatch, if your ptex has no structure
I brush after every thin layer of wax 2-3 coats usually after or before every day on the snow, works good for this bum.

Try some Californy board shops for oneball jay summer slush wax

+1 ditto

RainX or dish soap (be green, use camp suds) in a pinch but OBJ summer wax with a wire brush structure will help but really- nothing works.

Thanks for saving my weekend!

I would seriously think twice, if not thrice, before I would do any kind of semi-perminent base structuring.

Use this


Rub on before every run.

I have Zardoz, but as I stated earlier, it did diddlysquat.

heh, so much for reading.
surprised, zardoz has always worked for me in slurpee-like snow.
oh well. i guess i'm all for the diesel soaked strawbale.

Zardoz does in fact help in wet snow sometimes, but I think the only thing to do with our current snowpack is wait until it corns up a little and some of the water held by capillary action gets a chance to drain out. It fell as super-saturated flakes mixed with rain and held the water like a sponge. Once the grain structure changes some of the water will evaporate out, or percolate down. It's sunny today so we will go up and find out.

the Idea here is to break the capillary action/skin tension of the water in the snow flakes, graphite is an extremely hydrophobic material so it counters the skin tension. It's a great lubricant that also doesn't stick to much of anything, i.e. dirt, pollen, even pine tar; that's why zardoz or any thing else that needs to be applied every run will never come close to performing like graphite, especially in dirty spring snow.

+1 on don't mess with your base, it isn't going to help much. if it isnt 50 degrees out, and the skies are clear, sometimes there is a little window about 10-30 minutes after a goo slope (wet fairly recent fresh snow-not old settled firn) has gotten in the shade when a little easily breakable zipper crust refreezes on the surface. before it gets too frozen and annoying, it is really fast and keeps a fast barrier between your base and the wet goo below. Best to find kind of a cone shaped mtn facing east, south and west, so you can pick the right degree of refreeze.
Caveat emptor/no comment on the avy hazards at the end of the warm day here, go fast, don't ride above terrain traps, use brain at all times . . .

Well, all it took was one cold night's refreeze to speed things up LOT! There were still some pokey parts near the bottom of the mountain where it never really got cold, but everything else turned sublime.

Great photo. Glad to hear conditions worked out in your favor.

I didn't structure my board. I may use a wire brush in the future but I'm not so keen on 80 grit after all. Wax doesn't seem to last more than one ride down the hill in the spring. This time of year, I wax to clean the base and protect it from oxidizing between trips.

I rode this weekend under a blazing sun on a dry, factory base and things worked out as conditions allowed. I'm sure some slush wax would have helped for a couple turns but not enough to make it worth me while.

Got to be one of the best photos I have seen on this forum.