Every All-Mountain East ski is an amalgam of on- and off-trail traits, but usually one genetic strain is more dominant than the other. In the case of the new K2 Pinnacle 88, the essential orientation is off-piste, with only its narrower footprint and a ribbon of metal around its perimeter to aid in navigation on groomers.   Considering its amply rockered baseline, it’s remarkable that the Pinnacle 88 can carve up prepared slopes as well as it does.

But if you’re keeping the Pinnacle 88 on-trail, you bought the wrong ski. This ski is most in its element in new or recently new snow where its spatulate tip conforms to all it encounters. The inimitable Squid, recently retired after a century of service at Jan’s, recognizes in the Pinnacle 88 a “spoony feel that makes this ski unique. [It] can make many different turn shapes.”

K2 has an uncanny ability to make skis suitable for those with mostly imaginary skills that nonetheless respond to proper guidance under a more tutored hand. Put another way, skis like the Pinnacle 88 handle easily whether they’re skied from an upright stance that borders on the inert or directed by a dynamic skier who can exercise a ski with varying degrees of pressure and angulation.

The middling skier who’s become bored with the “meh” experience of making windshield-wiper turns on groomers should strap on a pair of Pinnacle 88’s and take a walk on the wild side of the mountain that’s never met a grooming machine.