Finesse Favorites: Kicking Back
The original idea behind making a ski as fat as 110mm underfoot wasn’t to open previously unskiable terrain to world-class athletes, but to allow those without such skills to be able to navigate less forbidding pitches when the snow is knee deep. Our Finesse Favorites...Power Picks: Killing It
The defining difference between our Power Picks and Finesse Favorites can be summed up succinctly: how fast are you willing to go before you steer out of the fall line? If you tend to ride the brakes and the gas at the same time, you’ve overshot your category: you...The 2020 Big Mountain Field
Last season the model turnover rate in the Big Mountain category was so low, it seemed suppliers had accepted the fact that the market for fat powder skis was limited to a trickle of sales per season. Perhaps the snows of two seasons ago spurred them into action, for...QST Stella 106
Even though Salomon gave the QST Stella 106 a significant boost in edging power last season, the French brand again raised its performance ceiling for 19/20. It reconfigured its construction by switching the roles played by basalt and flax, so basalt is now entwined with carbon in a bundle of braids while the flax flies solo in its own mat underfoot. This switcheroo creates a ski that’s at once lighter and stronger on edge than ever. To give it even more on-trail stability, Salomon trimmed its tail flare and tightened up the Stella’s turn radius (from 20m to 17m @ 167cm).