The Salomon QST series treats men and women equally, ergo the new QST Lumen 99 for women is cut from the same carbon and flax cloth as the unisex QST 99. For 2019, this entails an upgrade to C/FX3, a crosshatch grid comprised of tight bundles of carbon and flax covering the length and breadth of the ski. To improve shock damping even more, Salomon added a base layer of basalt.
The addition of basalt and C/FX3 strengthen a ski already armored with a Ti plate underfoot and built around an inverted all-wood core that eliminates the hinge points between tip and tail rockers and the camber pocket in the center. The combination of features creates a ski Level III Instructor Julie Matises of the Squaw Valley Ski School describes as “very light but powerful.” McKenzie Coles from Sturtevant’s of Sun Valley also approves of its featherweight design, lauding the Lumen 99 as “lightweight and easy to turn.”