AltaBird 12/20/09

[Skrad]

My new skis are rockered and measure 164/132/139. They are obviously designed for powder and crud, but can carve crisp turns on the artificial snow in Corkscrew. I use them almost every day that I am out now, even during the relatively dry stretch of the last two weeks. Not really certain why I would need to ski on my narrower skis unless I was planning on spending all day on groomed hardpack. And if I wanted to do that I would have been a Sun Valley skier.

 

[Admin]

Those Goliaths are too much ski for me when it isn't powder. That and my mind is playing games with me.

Would you elaborate on this?

Snow here is unusually stiff right now. I tip the scales at a whopping 147 lbs. and the Goliaths are 191 cm long, with dimensions of 135-108-124, yielding a 32m turning radius. They're amazing in soft snow or powder and in those conditions I adore them. When the snow is stiff and crunchy, though, it's just too damned much ski for a guy my size. Trying to muscle them around on a bumpy ride is demanding and tiring for me, and I thus found myself occasionally instinctively slipping into the back seat. As a result my confidence took a beating, which were the mind games that I was referring to -- I felt like I couldn't ski worth a damn.

Meanwhile my G3 Reverends are just too light -- that same chunky stiff crud just tosses them around and I'm always fighting to keep them where they should be.

Today I demoed a Rossignol S6 Caballero as I was thinking about adding them to the quiver for just this kind of situation, and I ended up liking them only after moving the bindings (they were mounted 3 cm forward of center, which just gave them way too much tail -- they were a totally different ski when center mounted). They're 140-110-133, which still gives them a beefy platform underfoot but also gives them a far more manageable 21.3m turning radius. They're a wood core that was reasonably damp in the thick chunkies, and is substantially heavier and therefore more stable in that stuff. They were also very easy to get onto edge and keep them there on the groomers, allowing big, deep arcs while cruising that were a whole lot of fun. Mounted AT they'd have a much higher platform than with the demo alpine binders I was using today, and thus would be even easier to grind into an arc.

Those skis may be a done deal.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Pardon my ignorance, but why does the packed/stiff snow ski need to be 110mm underfoot? Admin already has 2 pair of powder skis. And he does nearly all his skiing half an hour from home, so the other skis can be waiting in his truck if he somehow starts the day on the wrong pair and/or conditions change and he needs to switch skis.

I would recall that this humble touron finally got a 18-22 inch storm in LCC last March. Day 1 during the storm was on my everyday K2 Recons, 78mm underfoot. These do have a wide shovel and are wider underfoot than any all mountain ski at the beginning of this decade. So they were not any particular problem as the snow got deeper in the afternoon. Day 2 with all the fresh snow was a demo of the K2 Obsethed. Day 3 was morning powder on stuff that had been closed until then: Little Cloud/Bookends/Tigertail. I was on the Volkl Mantras for that. They are 96mm underfoot but fairly stiff, so sometimes I have difficulty. But they were fine in the alpine powder and too much work only in the more confined parts of Tigertail.

I also recall in the 50 inches of blower on April 9, 1999 I was demoing the Volant Power Ti's (73mm underfoot) that I later bought as my everyday ski. I thrashed as much as anybody in variable snow on skinny skis before the late 1990's, but nearly any current "all mountain" design should be acceptable in Utah powder IMHO.

 

[Admin]

Pardon my ignorance, but why does the packed/stiff snow ski need to be 110mm underfoot?

Frankly I prefer a little beef to my ski, and for this quiver entry I want an ability to go through widely varying snow conditions.

I'm a bit behind, but later today plan to post a report from the past three days throughout LCC. Yesterday, though, I dug out of the gear closet my Volkl CMH-Edition Expolsivs (which, despite their name and topskin graphic, are an early-generation Mantra). Frankly after not skiing them for a couple of seasons I forgot how much fun that ski can be in these conditions. They've lost a bit of life thanks to well over 200 days on them, but the platform and sidecut were perfect, and the ample metal and wood in that ski makes it a crudbuster. My confidence was restored nearly instantly, and I think that I'll get by with those for a while until fresh snow returns.

 

[socal]

Pardon my ignorance, but why does the packed/stiff snow ski need to be 110mm underfoot? Admin already has 2 pair of powder skis. And he does nearly all his skiing half an hour from home, so the other skis can be waiting in his truck if he somehow starts the day on the wrong pair and/or conditions change and he needs to switch skis.
.

My 105mm underfoot Gotamas are my everyday ski. I think that the wider skis just kill the crud vs something with more shape which tends to catch edges in the uneven surfaces. Sure bumps are better with a narrower waist but my Gotamas do very well in the bumps. I've got a pair of older AC4's that I had planned to use on packed powder days but they're not my rock skis for late season baldy days. Even over Memorial Day at Mammoth I much preferred the wider waist of my Gotamas in the soft bumps and corn.

I'm still on the fence with regards to some rocker for harder packed days. I really think that my new Kuro's (132mm waist and 160ish shovel) would have been okay over this past weekend, they just stay right on top of any uneven snow and do surprisingly well on the groomers.