Ski Review: 2018-2019 Åsnes Gamme 54 BC

[fisheater]

Musk Ox, sounds like you have some awesome terrain to tour! You need the ski to maximize your fun. It sounds like Nansen is the ski. I really like my Gamme, but I’m not making turns down a mountainside. I have never seen a Nansen in person, but if you can bend it into a turn going down your local mountains, and get decent kick and glide... well, it seems as though the ski may be a bad a$$ as the man.
There’s always another year for Gamme speed tours. Now, touring into the mountains on skinny skis and turning on the down. That is living large, large as a Musk Ox!

[Smitty]

I'll echo Woods, LC and Fish. This is my third season with a pair of 210 cm Gammes and I picked up some 205 cm Nansen this year. I'll save the full details for the Nansen thread, and once I have more time on them, but they're a very different ski than the Gammes. I don't have a lot of open space or deep snow in my neck of the woods to compare long, wide open turns. But the Nansen are a lot more nimble and have a lot tighter "steer-ability" than the Gammes on a narrow, rolling fat bike / snow shoe trail. They're basically everything I hoped my Eons would be. A lot of folks like the Eon, but they're too soft for my weight, even at max length. The Nansens have nice, round flex that's somewhere between the Eon and Gamme in stiffness.

[lilcliffy]

Hello Smitty!
Wonderful to hear from you!
Great info on the Gamme 54 vs Nansen!
(MAN- I keep talking myself out of a Nansen, and then it keeps coming back to the fore of my mind!)

Happy New Year- hope that you and your family are well!
You still in AB?
Gareth

[Smitty]

Hello Smitty!
Wonderful to hear from you!
Great info on the Gamme 54 vs Nansen!
(MAN- I keep talking myself out of a Nansen, and then it keeps coming back to the fore of my mind!)

Happy New Year- hope that you and your family are well!
You still in AB?
Gareth

Hey Gareth, Happy New Year to you too!

I know, I was torn on whether the Nansen and Gamme were too similar, but I'm stoked so far. It's all really minutia in the end anyway haha.

You bet, still up in the boreal in NE Alberta. Miiiiiiight have a professional opportunity coming up in the next couple months to relocate within day-tripping distance of the Rockies. See where 2021 takes us!

[Musk Ox]

I swapped my Gammes for some brand new Nansens and feel good about it. What a palaver. Thanks for the assistance everyone. We might even get enough snow today for the first tour of the season tomorrow!

My wife’s eyeing Gammes now. Anyone know how good X-skins are on consolidated/ wind compacted snow with the Gamme's comparatively shallow camber? (ie, how much fun is it to be the person without the pulk when you're swapping over?)

[Edited to make it clear which skis I'm talking about!]

[Woodserson]

I swapped my Gammes for some brand new Nansens and feel good about it. What a palaver. Thanks for the assistance everyone. We might even get enough snow today for the first tour of the season tomorrow!

My wife’s eyeing Gammes now. Anyone know how good X-skins are on consolidated/ wind compacted snow with that comparatively shallow camber? (ie, how much fun is it to be the person without the pulk?)

Your wife with her tree-climbing XC ski abilities would probably love the Gammes. Stable yet sporty, which will synchronize with her aggressive ski tendencies to fly away from any embarrassing ski-Danes.

I'm assuming you are referencing X-Skin on the Nansen?
-The person without the pulk will have heavy backpack instead of pulk? That person should be on the more cambered skis. (Your wife on the Gamme for instance... let her know now)

-I just towed a pulk around on the Nansens for 2 days and no problems, since weight was in the pulk and not on me. The lower camber was nice to have, I didn't have to work as hard. I didn't need to use the X-Skins but waxed to the top of the shovel.

-Skins on consolidated snow is never really great unless you have good camber. But the X-Skin mohair is so fantastique! If I was carrying backpack + Nansens I'd probably bring a dedicated pair of skins that I would customize for me and extra weight on the Nansens and do it on the fly, cutting 2cm until I got it right. Don't sweat it so hard, go and try. Hell I'd do this with the pulk too.

You're going to be fine. Just bring the tools to fiddle until you nail it. People are towing pulks with Nansens all the time.

[Musk Ox]

I actually meant the Gamme here, Woods! I'm sort of thinking when you change over, taking turns to pull, maybe swapping a pack too, assuming you both have skins on in hard snow conditions... just generally, maybe a more higher-cambered pulk machine like the Amundsen might be an option to the Gamme for her. All very hypothetical... just interested in hearing experience!

[Woodserson]

I actually meant the Gamme here, Woods! I'm sort of thinking when you change over, taking turns to pull, maybe swapping a pack too, assuming you both have skins on in hard snow conditions... just generally, maybe a more higher-cambered pulk machine like the Amundsen might be an option to the Gamme for her. All very hypothetical... just interested in hearing experience!

Gamme and X-Skin work well together. Higher cambered than the Nansen. I think the Amundsen and Gamme share similar cambers, but Gamme has rocker? Unsure on this, but if not, they are close.

[fisheater]

I made a post today on a different thread that was a Gamme 54 review. When I saw this thread I realized this thread was the original started by Lilcliffy.
This ski is everything Gareth said in the first post on this thread. I can’t add anything other than if you want to go fast, climb, handle the steep twisty trails, hard pack, or soft snow this is it. I really like this ski!

[Cannatonic]

The Gamme 54 does have plenty of camber and I've found it works well with the kicker skins - we get a lot of ice around here, I cut a 45mm Asnes nylon skin down to just short of the boot heel and it works great on ice. Like klister without all the pine needles.

With mohair the glide would be even better, but for hard ice and crust the nylon feels good, it feels like a good scale pattern that grips on ice. I use the 30 or 35mm mohair skin in full length in warm and slushy snow and it's perfect for that.