so steph and i were contemplating renting some for some backcountry/hiking type skiing. the place i can rent from rents all types of free hill skis including telemark gear.

so for some complete newbies when it comes to xc what would be the best one to take out to see if we like it?

not sure what we would doing, probably a mix of climbs and coming down as well as flat stuff

Get some all purpose backcountry "mountain noodle" type boards if you're tromping around the woods and up and down hills. Unless you are really in the high mountains above treeline in the bowls, AT gear is just too heavy.

I just googled on Mountain Noodle and their skis are now too heavy for touring as well. An unfortunate trend. Get some medium weight skis for touring around that also have metal edges, you can tackle hills with those too but they won't be heavy and slow. Can you get stuff like that anymore? Probably from Karhu, just go for the Karhu all around backcountry/tele ski and medium weight boot and binding.