It only took about 18 years but the light bulb finally went off for me about boutique skis. What did it was riding another pair of planks that, by outward evidence, were merely another pair of custom made skis that were undeniably beautiful to behold, but couldn’t possibly ski that well.
Archive for the ‘Skis’ Category
Review: Voile Vector BC – One ski to farm it all?
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Depending on what your fave form of sliding is, Voile’s Vector BC is one of the few skis that spans a broad enough range of usefulness to qualify as a backcountry quiver of one. The more time you spend mixing it up with kick ‘n’ glide tours, or casual strolls in the woods and foothills, to earning turns, the more appropriate the Vector BC is.
Posted in Dostie, Craig, Mid-Fat Skis, Voile 
Tags: metal-edged, tele-lite, waxless, XCD 
3 Comments »Review: Marquette Backcountry skis
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When the concept of the Marquette Backcountry ski was first explained it sounded like a great idea. Kudos to the marketing department for truth in advertising. The sticker adorning the ski says these planks are 30% snowshoe, 70% ski. After having ski toured with them I concur one hundred percent with that assessment. One of [...]
Posted in Dostie, Craig, Super-Fat Tags: fat ski, patterned base, snowshoe, waxless ski 2 Comments »First Look: H2OG’s Karen’cito, Kodiak & Tazlina
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Understanding the flow of snow is what inspired Cummings to develop his own ski brand. Many of his clients come to fly with Dean in his heli guiding operation and he sees what they need. Fatter skis. No, even fatter ones.
Review: Fischer S-Bound 112
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With a fatter ski you might think they create more drag, but actually, and especially when you’re breaking trail they make it easier because they aren’t constantly “submarining” in the snow. Plus they have better grip thanks to more waxless surface area.
Review: Black Diamond Aspect Ski
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For the turn happy skier Black Diamond’s Aspect ski makes an easy first impression. There’s a lot of shape compared to many of today’s moderately curved skis as evidenced by a wide 126 mm at the shovel, but only 90mm at the waist. Whether it’s delicious powder, velvety corn, even soft chunder and day-old funk [...]
Review: La Sportiva GT Skis
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La Sportiva delivers a solid mid-fat ski in their inaugural foray into the skiing realm with the GT. I holds well on firm snow with a lively, snappy responsiveness between turns.
Review: K2 Wayback Skis
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The main reason K2′s Wayback ski didn’t become my go to ski last year had nothing to do with the skis performance. For starters, one of the goals for last season was to test a small group of old school fatties. Translation, skis with a waist width somewhere around 90mm; skinny by current standards, but [...]
PR: Marquette Backcountry Ski
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Seems like there’s a move afoot to turn slowshoe fans in to skiers. The common elements of that theme are to produce a fat ski that is easy to walk in, can go uphill without adding anything special (waxes or climbing skins), and has enough glide to make turns downhill. Add to that list a [...]
Press Release: Altai Skis – The Hok
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The fat ski revolution is expanding yet again only this time the goal is to add more customers to the pie, not necessarily increase the width of the ski. Altai Skis was founded last April with the development of the Hok. It is a short fat ski with a patch of climbing skin permanently mounted [...]
