For the Finesse skier, the Salomon QST 99 has a lot to offer. It has a big sweet spot, it responds to relatively low doses of skier-applied pressure, the forebody pulls the skier into a comfortable, medium-radius turn and the tail releases automatically. Best of all, it has the chameleon quality of carving like a champ on groomers yet as soon as it detects soft snow it morphs into a surfy, terrain-absorbing off-piste ski.
By trimming the thickness of its Titanal laminates, Stöckli made the 2018 iteration a little softer tip to tail. This makes the new Stormrider 95 feel more forgiving and easier to bow into an arc that cuts as clean an arc as a Technical ski. Paul Jacobs of California Ski Company composed this panegyric to its virtues: “Stable, powerful and precise. The faster you go, the smoother it skis, yet not difficult to ski at lower speeds. Feels like a Mercedes AMG Hammer, composed over the worst surfaces. Probably the best executed ski on the planet.”
If you’re fortunate enough to catch first tracks, it almost doesn’t matter which All-Mountain West model you’re on. They all offer approximately the same flotation, and fresh snow is so consistent that skis sustain relatively little shock. It’s on runs 2 through 20 that you’ll be particularly pleased you’re on an Aura. Cut-up snow is utter bliss if you ski it right and pure hell if you don’t. Whether you spend the day upright and smiling or upside down looking for your goggles depends a great deal on the tool you use.
3D.Glass would be nothing fancier than another base layer of glass were it not for a clever modification: in the binding area the glass extends vertically up the sidewall and over the top of it. It’s sort of a demi-torsion box, with much the same effect as this time-honored glass molding technique: the ski becomes both more torsionally rigid and livelier, as the hard-wired memory of the glass will dominate the rebound characteristic.
The Black Pearl is such a runaway hit that Blizzard applied the name to every model in its All-Mountain Freeride collection, rechristening the Samba as the Black Pearl 98. More than just the name is new: the Black Pearl 98 has considerably more shape than the Samba and the front rocker is made to connect a little earlier. These changes elevate the new ski’s hard snow performance without diminishing its natural predisposition to ski anything else but.