I just registered to this forum as I want to buy a pair of skis and of course I could not come yet to a conclusion.
This community seems to me that it collectively has decades of experience and I am looking forward to benefit from it
.Myself:
- Past 15 years experience: recreative race classic and skate cross-country skiing in tracks (Fischer Speedmax)
- Intermediate downhill skier using downhill skis
- 20 years ago approximately 5 mountain trecks with backpack and rental XC BC waxable skis and full lenght skins
- 175 cm / 5' 9" body lenght
- 160 lbm / 73 kg body mass
My intended use for this new pair of skis:
- Between 3 and 10 days mountain trecks hut-to-hut in narrow trails allowing only one skier width, and also forest roads, but no open fields.
- 50 lbm / 23 kg backpack (210 lbm / 96 kg total with body mass)
- Mostly gradual slopes
- Often steep slopes
- Rare flats
- Snow types: unpredictable so all of them: hard, icy, powder, crust, etc ... between -25°C and +10°C
- No downhill with parallel or telemark turns on open terrain, only donwhill in narrow trails using snowplow for controlled speed and direction for safety
- The weight of the backpack and the rare flats seems to indicate I don't aboslutely need to optimize kick and glide
- The most critical design condition the ski must meet is safety in steep downhill narrow trails in which I snowplow
In summary, the decisive question that I have is, what ski characteristic(s) make(s) it easy to control speed and direction in steep downhill narrow trails with the extra mass of a 50 lbm backpack ?
