New rant... Backcountry/wide skis and telemarkers

[fisheater]

^^^^^^^
What he said!!! Well, except I preferred the detuned models, K2 Extremes, and Atomic PCM skis. I liked skis stiff, but not racing stiff. I also preferred my terrain steeper, snow softer, and wanted to turn where I wanted to turn.

[Cannatonic]

I gave away my last pair of K2's to some guy from Craiglist about 5 years ago - the last ones to go were some 207cm K2 Extremes from the early 90's - they were my faves for a few years of Maine/Vermont skiing. I think they had slalom sidecut with GS flex - or was it the other way around? I had K2 TNC's when I lived out west, they were awesome lightweight GS skis.....always with Marker turntable bindings!

[oldschool47]

Skinny Skis forever. And single chairlifts ...

[HBS]

Oh man I feel like this thread describes me (aside from tele skiing). The girlfriend and I just got back from a long weekend resort ski trip to Banff with the Ikon pass. She is queen of the bumps and mellow trees. I enjoy both but also love high speed turns on steep groomers and jump turns on old pow double blacks. I took my new 185 cm Voile Hyperchargers (143-108-126) mounted with a beefy-ish AT setup because I don't have or see the need for a resort only alpine setup when my AT bindings have plenty of elasticity and let me uphill before the lifts start turning to steal powder from the masses.

It was spring conditions on most of the mountain - we didn't even bother showing up before 10:30. I could still rail slowly softening groomers just fine. In the slush in the late afternoon the wide skis with some tip and tail rocker are fantastic, you feel like nothing can steer you off track and you can release a turn without a thought. These skis are fat as all getout but they still have plenty of camber to pop off from turn to turn. I'm sure my transition between turns is slower than a skinny ski but I have plenty of edge to carve. Around 1 or 2 pm the trees softened up and hitting slushy bumps and steeps was amazing. At Lake Louise the shadier back bowl gullies still held old dry powder which was a hoot to jump turn down and shred the bottom of. Earlier in the season we had an 18" powder day at winter park on top of over a foot of older powder and shredding the chopped up snow at the end of the day was almost too easy. We skied open to close and only in the last hour of the day were my legs finally starting to get tired.

So poo poo my "trendy" wide skis with AT boots/bindings all you want, I will be skinning by 7 am on a wednesday powder day and back to work by 11, saving my precious vacation hours for spring backcountry trips with the exact same skis only lighter boots.

[fisheater]

I gave away my last pair of K2's to some guy from Craiglist about 5 years ago - the last ones to go were some 207cm K2 Extremes from the early 90's - they were my faves for a few years of Maine/Vermont skiing. I think they had slalom sidecut with GS flex - or was it the other way around? I had K2 TNC's when I lived out west, they were awesome lightweight GS skis.....always with Marker turntable bindings!

The Extremes had a softer GS flex and a slalom sidecut. I never have skied slalom flex skis well. I had a body that was just the opposite, he preferred slalom skis. My Extremes were black, I believe the sidewalls were purple.

[Woodserson]

So poo poo my "trendy" wide skis with AT boots/bindings all you want, I will be skinning by 7 am on a wednesday powder day and back to work by 11, saving my precious vacation hours for spring backcountry trips with the exact same skis only lighter boots.

I'm certainly not pooh-poohing your skis, I have plenty of fat skis I (used to) roll over on edge, and all my friends are on your setup. What we want is options, and those options aren't there.

[Cannatonic]

The Extremes had a softer GS flex and a slalom sidecut. I never have skied slalom flex skis well. I had a body that was just the opposite, he preferred slalom skis. My Extremes were black, I believe the sidewalls were purple.

yep, I think you nailed it. Look what I found - this guy had the exact same 2 pairs of skis in his basement that I did! TNC comps and the Extremes, same Marker toepiece but I had the turntable heel version

https://offerup.com/item/detail/601831240/

[HBS]

So poo poo my "trendy" wide skis with AT boots/bindings all you want, I will be skinning by 7 am on a wednesday powder day and back to work by 11, saving my precious vacation hours for spring backcountry trips with the exact same skis only lighter boots.

I'm certainly not pooh-poohing your skis, I have plenty of fat skis I (used to) roll over on edge, and all my friends are on your setup. What we want is options, and those options aren't there.

Not sure about that - the video in the first post literally says "skiing on fat skis isn't skiing".

Also the people in this thread are saying they want the long skinny cambered skis of old but everywhere else on this form preach the benefits of "Nordic rocker" and wider tips for trail breaking, more sidecut for turning, etc. all things from the fat ski era. So do people really want the same exact skis from the 80s and before, or do they want some kind of skinner rockered ski?

[Woodserson]

Not sure about that - the video in the first post literally says "skiing on fat skis isn't skiing".

Also the people in this thread are saying they want the long skinny cambered skis of old but everywhere else on this form preach the benefits of "Nordic rocker" and wider tips for trail breaking, more sidecut for turning, etc. all things from the fat ski era. So do people really want the same exact skis from the 80s and before, or do they want some kind of skinner rockered ski?

First, “I’M certainly not...”

And YES, as stated kinda stated on page two in a badly worded post, and elsewhere. I would love a high 70 to mid 80 ski, with rocker, medium round flex, and in the 185cm range... 19m or so radius. Many of these skis exist with “all mountain rocker” or something, and that’s mostly symbolic rocker. I want an Objective but longer or a Black Crows Orb, but more rocker.

[Harris]

Ok, some thoughts here... I don't exactly agree with the video author's summation that skiing wider skis "is not skiing." IMO, if a person is on skis it is skiing. But the point I was trying to make is that phat skis are being sold as "all mountain" skis, when in fact they pretty much suck when the snow is less than several inches deep, which at a resort, aside from getting soft shots at secret stashes (which is getting harder to find these days) is pretty much what a person has to contend with by mid-day after a dumping (conditions skied out). I say this because I jumped on the "all mountain" bandwagon when replacing skis over 15 years old. My ski of choice to replace my BD Havocs was 2 pair of K2 pinnacle 95's (one for alpine and one for tele). Now the K2 95's might have a sub 100mm waist but they have all the other tricks: 134mm tips, 118mm tails, and rockered tips and tails. Compared to my old Havoc's they were the cat's meow. But I like to experiment and tested out true FIS GS skis as well as Slalom (very used, free Volkl race tigers) and saw a huge difference in groomed performance. The GS skis were a bit much for the radius I like to turn and need to turn in groomed but skied out conditions. The slalom were too short (158cm) and I would routinely hook a tip under the leading ski binding while skiing moguls. Then Wooderson (the evil genius) turned me onto Atomic Vantage skis. Bought a pair of Atomic Vantage X 83 CTI's for my alpine and "WOW!' For most normal resort days my K2's were an extreme handicap in comparison. And so for tele I bought a used pair of "demo" 80mm CTI's. Profoundly more turnable and less exhausting to use than the K2's. Did I toss the k2's? Hell no. If it snows more than 4" I'm breaking out the fat boys. Our snow here comes in heavy and deep, and the all mountain skis ski like a dream in those conditions; you're not fighting tip dive with them, which in wet snow is an exhausting affair on front side skis. But I can state with tested fact that using an all mountain ski for a daily driver is a handicap, especially if you love tech turning slopes with any real angle to them (tele or alpine). It isn't that Phat skis are so hard to roll, it is that takes a lot more muscle to keep them leveraged on edge. And... Rockered skis are famously terrible at finishing p-turns on solid underfoot; they like to chatter, which is thigh sapping; a lot of folks, including myself detune the hell out of the tips and tails of rockered because of this (so they side-slide a bit more at turn finish rather than "catch and release").