Treating Winter pak boots

[baggins]

Hi Guys,
i have a pair of Sealand Snow king pak boots and, although i haven't worn them much over the last couple of years, i'm heading off to Finnmark in march and wondered if anybody had any recommendations for treating the leather, to keep it in its best condition. wax, oil or any other secret treatments would be much appreciated.

Cheers

Baggins

 

[Teepee]

Those are Nubuck leather. You can use a number of different treatments, all will repel snow and a fair amount of water which hopefully you won't get. A wax will darken the leather but this may not bother you. My first pair of Nubuck pacs were done in beeswax based G-wax and melted in. It darkened quite a bit but lasts 2 weeks out there easily.
For a non colour altering treatment, Nikwax suede and leather proof is good. Best I've used so far on suede type finishes is Steger Snowproof (made by Halls but it's not worth sourcing it for this. For conditioning, I use the Nikwax conditioner. This will still want another application of something over it as it doesn't have the longevity of the waterproofing waxes.

Where abouts are you headed to in Finnmark?

 

[baggins]

Cheers Teepee,
that really helps and all stuff i already have knocking about.
Hopefully we're going to fly into Kiruna in Sweden, then drive up to the Varanger park and head west along the coast, exploring as we go. hopefully we should get as far as tromso before we head back to sweden.
Any tips are always welcome.
Baggins

 

[Teepee]

Sounds utterly fantastic. My tip is not to come home again and try to look out of the windscreen when driving rather than dribbling down the window, looking at the views.

You'll have so much to see up there, what an amazing drive.

You can buy good quality kit in Kiruna at the hunting shop. It's very well stocked and the guys in the shop know their stuff. Abisko and the Tornetrask valley are 30 miles from Kiruna, very well worth visiting and spending a couple of days at least. It has the blue hole of Abisko for aurora viewing and the iconic Lapporten, an ancient Saami campground with a very special feel to the place to me.

I've not yet been to the north cape and Kirkenes area but will do before long. I won't bore you with Varanger and Tromso as you've obviously looked at those. Places that are on the list up there for me are the Pasvik valley near Kirkeness, Stabbursdalen near Alta. Central Finnmark is proper Sami country with softer looking land and rounded hills. It doesn't have the shapely mountains of lots of the rest of Norway. Its by far the coldest part though, hits -50c on the plateau in places and the temp forecasts can be unreliable there (ie, forecast -8c, actually -39c for example).

This is the best Norwegian weather site; http://www.yr.no/place/Norway/Finnmark/Karasjok/Karasjok~303806/
Norwegian winter trail map; http://www.nordatlas.no/default.aspx?gui=1&lang=2

Kiruna is a good place to start from. Also worth looking at flying into Tromso as it's a direct flight. Ivalo in Finland too.

 

[baggins]

Wow, Thanks mate. a good few things there to add to a rapidly expanding to-do list, may have to take your advice and not come home.
Will definitely post up some pics when we get back. just wishing we didn't have to get through Feb first, lol!

 

[Teepee]

Wow, Thanks mate. a good few things there to add to a rapidly expanding to-do list, may have to take your advice and not come home.
Will definitely post up some pics when we get back. just wishing we didn't have to get through Feb first, lol!

Abisko last night.

I was going to go out in feb but decided to postpone it this year til march earliest, trying to enjoy our winter this year before extending the season over there. I'd love to se some pics mate, it's a dream trip.