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Base building for my Alaskan journey is going...okay. Still disappointingly unfit; my 5-minute power is a puny 200 watts at a body weight of 70 kilos. I can deadlift 275 and squat 245, though, so I have that going for me. Plan to get a used bike trainer and a rear wheel for it so I can do 1-2 hour steady distance rides. Hiking up mountains, too, on weekends...that should help build base fitness as well. Shit is boring and requires discipline. Valuable life lessons here. Seems like any badass shit runs off of a long-ass logistics tail to support the teeth. Lots of unglamorous prep work and grinding away at either low intensity stuff like 45 minute slow runs at a turtle-like 15 minute mile pace or figuring out how to line ski mountaineering boots that are three sizes too large with insulation both inside and out so I don't get frostbite. I could be deluding myself here, but I feel like I'm becoming a better or at least more capable person as a result of this training process. It at least seems cool. This whole Alaska crap might be dumb as all hell, but at least I'll be a fit dumbass...
"Ski mountaineering boots" can mean different things to different people, but usually they are pretty downhill oriented these days. Even older leather/hybrid things that might get called that are absolutely not what one would want if one were shuffling around the wilderness in Alaska. (Unless one planned to bag some peaks and ski down them while one was there, I guess)
Since you seem to be proposing trackless wilderness, skis are probably not a great idea at all -- snowshoes and giant Sorels (or similar) is pretty much what trappers and such have been rocking since forever in situations where skidoos won't work -- this is not because they don't know what they are doing.
The ski mountaineering boots in question are these, three sizes too large. I've added a beefy liner plus homemade sheepskin insoles scavenged from a thrift-store coat. I'll be knitting some...outer liner linings? to take up even more of the volume. I should be left with a boot that is much warmer than stock, slightly sloppy (I know, not great for ski performance, but many explorers use cross country skiing gear and this should be burlier and safer than XC gear) and theoretically usable for my Alaskan adventure. People climb and ski on Denali with setups like this or lighter; the 'using oversize boots and stuffing them' is a not terribly recommended technique that should be at least theoretically usable. The Scarpa Nero liners I bought for $50 on eBay are around 5mm thicker than the stock liners. Size 9 shoes are 25mm shorter than size 12 ones; with this beefy liner I've already eaten up 10mm and so have 15mm to go. I'm a decent knitter and should be able to fashion a decent outer liner for my existing boot liners that'll eat up the rest of the space and keep my feet warm enough. Over the top of the boot are going to go homemade sheepskin overboots; Forty Below has some good overboots but at $250/pair they're almost as expensive as my ski boots. I think I should be able to make something serviceable.
As far as the snowshoes and Sorels: I considered it, but snowshoes are slower, I have significant downhill skiing experience as a former high school racer, and Northern peoples have been using skis for millennia.
These are indeed what I would call ski mountaineering boots, and they are a terrible choice for flatland travel -- they are nice enough boots, but they are designed to do two things well:
They will absolutely suck for breaking trail in the woods.
You are right that skis can be faster than snowshoes in some conditions; just that 'cold dry interior forest' is not one of those conditions -- you won't be able to stay on the surface and do anything like gliding unless you luck into a melt-crust or something, you will be shuffling at roughly snowshoe pace anyways. (and your rigid boots would make this hellish, especially since they don't fit)
If you are serious about using skis for this I would not worry about your feet being cold -- you will be working hard enough that it won't be a problem, regular touring boots would be fine. You probably want to not carry extra boots for when you aren't skiing though, so something like this would be great: https://www.baffin.com/products/3pinm003
I actually do something along these lines in the winter (not in Alaska) -- I've taken gear tips from this forum in the past: https://telemarktalk.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3112
That link is an interesting thread, with some actual Alaskans involved -- I do use something like the NATO skis mentioned for breaking trail around my place -- which is worth it if you are planning to revisit the trail. Otherwise unless there are significant downhill parts on your route, the snowshoes will be faster and more energy efficient. Also some interesting input from a Finnish dude -- I think you will not be able to find his 300cm 'forest skis' on ebay though. (and I'd think their utility would depend a lot on the density of the forest in question)
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