Garmin cross country skiing: profiles, power, FTP and laps

Garmin treats cross country skiing as its own sport. Higher-end watches such as the fēnix 8 have two separate profiles, XC Classic Ski and XC Skate Ski, and with an HRM-Pro series chest strap they add a ski power metric with its own power zones and FTP. Lap timing defaults to the running model, so a loop skier should change one setting before the first session.

Two profiles, on some watches

The fēnix 8 manual lists XC Classic Ski and XC Skate Ski as separate winter activities, next to Backcountry Ski, Ski and Snowshoe. Separate profiles mean separate data screens and separate history, which is exactly what a skier who trains both techniques needs.

Not every Garmin has both. On the Forerunner 255 forum, owners report that the watch has no XC Skate Ski profile at all, and another user replies that skate is on higher-end models only. If you skate on a mid-range Forerunner, check the activity list before you buy, or plan to tag skate sessions by hand.

XC ski power and what it measures

Garmin's XC ski power gives you a watts number for skiing, the way a power meter does on a bike. The requirements are specific:

• A compatible watch. The cross-country skiing power page appears in the manuals for the fēnix 6, 7 and 8 series, epix and Forerunner 945 and 955, among others.
• An HRM-Pro series strap paired over ANT+, not Bluetooth. The watch alone does not produce ski power.
• One of the two XC profiles. When the feature launched in 2020, DC Rainmaker found that it did not appear in XC Backcountry Ski.

According to Garmin, the algorithm detects when you are in a glide phase with no propulsion and uses those glides to work out a friction value for the snow. Power then reflects speed, slope, wind and snow. Garmin keeps separate power settings for skate and classic.

Two practical notes:

• Expect lower numbers than on the bike. Garmin's manual says ski power is commonly 30 to 40 percent lower than cycling power at the same intensity, because skiing is less efficient. Do not set ski zones from your cycling FTP.
• The friction model needs glides to work with. DC Rainmaker reported that power gets more accurate after a handful of longer glides, so the first minutes of a session on a twisty trail tell you less.

FTP for skiing, and how to remove a ghost value

FTP, functional threshold power, is the intensity you can hold for about an hour, expressed by Garmin in watts per kilogram. Garmin keeps a separate FTP and zone set per activity.

That is where the most common complaint comes from. In a long Garmin Connect forum thread, users report an XC ski FTP in their profile even though they have never skied with the watch. Garmin staff replied that the issue was under investigation and escalated; no fix is posted, and the thread is now locked.

What you can do:

1. On the watch, open User Profile, then Power Zones, and pick the ski activity. There you can switch Auto Detect FTP off, enter your own FTP, or base zones on watts instead of percent of FTP.
2. In Garmin Connect, users find the ski zones under the device's User Profile, then Heart Rate & Power Zones, Power and XC Ski, with a Reset Zones option.
3. If you never ski with power, ignore the value, as several users in the thread chose to do.

Forum users report that the entry cannot be deleted outright once it appears, so a reset is the realistic goal.

Auto lap by distance on a loop

Garmin's Auto Lap setting has two modes. Auto Distance marks a lap at a set distance, usually 1 km. Auto Position marks a lap at the spot where you previously pressed the lap button.

On a ski loop, Auto Distance is the wrong tool. A 3.63 km lit loop is not a whole number of kilometers, so the 1 km lap lands somewhere new on every pass, halfway up the climb once and on the descent the next. Each split mixes a different share of up and down, and none of them can be compared with the same split next week.

Auto Position fits a loop much better:

• Switch Auto Lap to Auto Position in the XC profile you use.
• Press lap once at the stadium on the first pass.
• From then on, the watch marks a lap every time you pass that spot.

Two limits remain. Every pass through that spot becomes a lap, so a session of 3.63, 5.42 and 3.63 gives three laps that you sort out by distance afterwards. And to compare today's third lap with last Tuesday's, you open both activities side by side. Some older watches had no lap settings in the XC profile at all; vívoactive 3 owners reported exactly that, so check yours. Lap timing on loops is covered in more depth in why kilometer splits are meaningless on ski loops.

Where Skibuddy fits

Skibuddy sets a lap gate where you press Start and closes a lap each time you pass it again in the same direction. Loops of different lengths through the same gate each close as their own lap, and Skibuddy sets every lap against your last, your best and your average.

A Garmin with two XC profiles, an HRM-Pro strap and Auto Position set up covers a lot of what a cross country skier needs. Spend ten minutes in the settings before the snow arrives.