The Stance 84’s most stunning achievement isn’t its podium finish among our Finesse Favorites, or even its elite, on-trail performance; the headline story about Salomon’s Stance 84 is its off-the-charts value. The Stance 84 is slotted to sell at $499; there’s a slew of models slated to retail at $699 or more that can’t hold a candle to it.
There’s always a reason why a modestly priced model punches above its weight. In the case of the Stance 84, it’s because Salomon trimmed its most expensive elements without eliminating them altogether. The Stance 84 retains a single topsheet of Titanal, with the distinctive Stance cut-out in its forebody filled with carbon instead of Salomon’s signature super-fiber, C/FX. It turns out to be more than enough to keep the Stance 84 calm on edge when it’s rocking the groomed terrain it prefers.
We weren’t able to test the Stance 84 in off-trail conditions, but there’s no reason to think it wouldn’t do well. As a practical matter, the typical Stance 84 customer doesn’t ski off trail unless he gets lost. He’s more likely to need help mastering the basics on-trail, where the Stance 84 proves to be that rarest of gems, a true bargain. Every brand will tell you that its $549 model skis amazingly well – for its price. The Stance 84 skis amazingly well, period.
Because the Frontside category comprises the most complete price/ability range in the ski market, its membership includes models meant for both end of the skills spectrum. In other words, some models are made to assist the uninitiated along the path to conscious competence, while others serve those who’ve already achieved total carving awareness.
The Rossignol Experience 82 Basalt is the rare bird that can serve both initiates taking the next step along their journey and those who’ve already arrived at their destination. Skiers who have endured the indignities of rentals and/or tattered hand-me-downs will find salvation in the EXP 82 Basalt. In the lower speed range inhabited by the less talented, it’s mindlessly simple to steer. It’s a classic confidence-builder for someone climbing the ability ladder.
With a sidecut made for carving but a baseline inclined to drift, the EXP 82 Basalt tries to accentuate the positive and disarm the negatives. As a learning vehicle, it’s more into gentle encouragement than demanding strict adherence to carving principles. As a long-term companion, it will be reliable as long as you keep your ambitions in check. For someone who is skiing more for social reasons – say, to hang with the grand-kids – the EXP 82 Basalt is just what the ski doctor ordered. Note that the $850 MSRP includes a binding.
By rights, the new Blizzard Black Pearl 84 shouldn’t even be encroaching on Frontside turf, let alone usurping the throne as best Power ski in a Power-prone genre, as every trait but its waist width is tailored for off-trail travel. The Pearl 84 can get away with an unabashedly off-trail sidecut and baseline because of a rich construction that prioritizes edge grip over drift. It doesn’t behave exactly like a classic carver, but its tactical deployment of Titanal gives it the requisite grip to bite into hard snow with the same level of tenacity.
The Black Pearl 84 gets its moxie from Blizzard’s Fluxform Women’s Specific Design, which could prove to be the best women-specific, all-mountain construction ever concocted from the same menu of materials in every other brands’ R&D arsenals.
The latest iteration of Fischer’s long-running Curv series of carvers, the Curv GT 80, is the most traditional, unabashed, groomed-snow partisan among our Women’s Frontside Recommended models. Like its fellow Austrian brand Head, Fischer was an early adopter of the Carving crusade, an allegiance that has never wavered. The Curv series was inaugurated in 2016/17, when three racing legends were commissioned to create the ultimate carving machine. The original Curv’s were most definitely cut from racing cloth, but the linkage to elite competition has been softened in this generation, to open its appeal to skiers of less than world-class ability.
So, the new 2025 The Curv GT 80 is wider, softer, lighter and easier to flex than the original Curv’s, geared down to match the talents of recreational skiers. It’s still a rich construction, with a single sheet of .5mm Titanal, a beech/poplar wood core and Diagofiber, Fischer’s homespun damping material to quiet the ride.
Over the last decade, the Frontside field has evolved to such a degree that Head’s Super Joy, the consummate carving machine, now looks more like an outlier than the norm. Over that time span, the Super Joy’s construction and shape have undergone a series of major alterations; it’s still focused on carving up groomers and it still enjoys the unique advantages of having Graphene in its make-up, but the last two upgrades have altered the Super Joy’s on-snow comportment considerably.
Just a few years ago, Head overhauled the Super Joy’s insides, kicking Koroyd to the curb and replacing it with an all-wood (Karuba and ash) core, supplemented by fiberglass for substance and snap, and more carbon for shock damping and snow contact. Head also adorned the Super Joy with its Energy Management Circuit (EMC) that converts vibrations into electricity, which it uses to stifle high-frequency shocks. As significant as these construction changes were, the improvements made to the Super Joy last year again raised its game to an entirely new level.
The most obvious change was in its skinnier sidecut, particularly at the tip, where Head lopped off nearly a centimeter. The narrower forebody won’t insist on tucking into the tippy-top of every turn, which is a major change in how the ski routinely behaves. While the new sidecut also entailed a longer turn radius, it still skewed to the short-turn side of the turn spectrum. It just cedes more control to the pilot regarding trajectory. Perhaps most importantly, the current sidecut makes the Super Joy far more amenable to off-trail conditions, so they needn’t always stick to perfectly manicured corduroy.
