No single ski benefited more from the addition of the Carbon Alloy Matrix (designated by the HD suffix in the product nomenclature), than the Experience 88 HD. There’s nothing about this ski it didn’t make better. It grips hard snow with more tenacity. It deflects clumps of day-old crud with more contempt. It tosses aside the occasional deflection that occurs in the belly of a 40mph GS turn, something the Olds 88 – excuse us, the old E88 – didn’t have the stuffing to resist.
Pay attention, Dear Reader, for this is one of the more significant shifts in product behavior we’ve seen in the last several years. The previous E88 had limits that might not have been perceptible to all Finesse skiers, but the 2017’s Experience 88 HD has moved the boundary over the Power skier’s horizon.
As befits the AME class, the Brahma is at its best when lingering near the border of powder and prepared slopes. Its ability to shift on the fly to 4-wheel drive is attributable to the subtly of its Flip Core tip rocker. Like any elevated shovel, the Brahma’s tip will find a way over whatever lies ahead, but unlike most models with this much rocker, it remains in contact with all snow surfaces, not just powder. Even on hardpack, the built-to-be-rockered Flip Core forebody is unflappable.
The all-mountain skis K2 introduced last year looked nothing like the 15-year parade of models that preceded them. The older generation of K2’s earned a huge following by being super simple to ski and as damp as soup.
The new K2’s, christened iKonic, stripped away a decade’s worth of embellishments in search of a leaner, more sensitive ski that would be both lighter and more reactive. To make a possibly inappropriate extended metaphor: compared to skiing, say, the Aftershock, skiing the iKonic 85 Ti is like waking up inside a B movie to find your wife is suddenly 20 years younger.
Some day, there will be a museum for everything; in the History of Ski Design Museum, the display devoted to today’s All-Mountain East genre will showcase the Völkl Kendo. The ski beneath the name has subtly mutated every few seasons, most recently last year; the consensus among Realskiers’ testers is that the current incarnation is the best suited to, well, everything.
What makes the Kendo so well admired by so many skiers is that it’s truly ready for anything. Powered by two sheets of Titanal around a multi-layered wood core, the Kendo retains enough camber underfoot to generate energy at the end of the arc, propelling the skier from turn to turn. This is the key to the Kendo’s confidence-building behavior on hard snow.
One can make a case for the Völkl Kenja being the best ski ever made for the advanced woman skier. Its Titanal laminates – rarely found in women’s skis – give it unparalleled bite on hard snow and the resilience to fight back in heavy crud. The Kenja excels because it doesn’t condescend.
“From year to year the Kenja continues to be the perfect ski for any condition,” writes Skylar from Aspen Ski and Board. “Outstanding edge hold on ice and easy to turn at higher speeds while still maintaining control. I’d recommend it for any advanced woman who loves it all!”
