As the fate of the Soul 7 HD W is inextricably linked to that of its unisex twin, the improvements made to one apply equally to the other. For 2018, this means the tip, while remaining rockered and tapered, is now integrated into the main body of the ski and makes contact with the snow closer to the widest point on the ski. The net effect is to improve edging effectiveness on those irksome occasions when hard snow is all there is to ski.
You might expect Line to make cores from hemp stalks and use ayahuasca as a base treatment. But there’s nothing particularly avant-garde about how Line builds its skis. Yes, there are full-length carbon stringers in the new Sick Day 104, always a nice touch, but this hardly qualifies as cutting edge. The wood core is all aspen, a nod to the current obsession with lightness. Wood layered with glass and a dash of carbon is as traditional a recipe as pot roast. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; it’s just more mainstream than you may realize given Line’s anti-Establishment posturing.
“Powerful GS turns,” purrs Pete from California Ski Company. “No speed limit. Felt stable at Mach ∞,” he notes admiringly. It’s not the raw speed per se, that’s so enthralling, but the ease at which the Stormrider 105 attains it and the uses it to fashion turns short enough to tuck into couloirs and long enough to ravage open bowls. “Killing it!!!,” exults the even more exuberant than usual Bob Gleason of Boot Doctors. “Surprisingly nimble ski for its waist size. The cross breeding of quickness, agility, and stability is in a class of its own.”
“Stable in all conditions,” coos a member of The Sport Loft coterie. “Carves well for a big ski; holds edge very well.” After a season on the QST 106, I not only concur with this assessment, I can expand upon it. I was so confident in the QST 106’s capabilities that I took them to the MasterFit Boot Test, where they skied all manner of chopped-up powder, from the wind-hammered moonscape of the upper mountain at Bachelor, to the stash-filled glades that were on our regular route, they delivered the sort of even-tempered support that made them such a solid reference ski.
Making lighter weight skis has been a Salomon specialty since it concocted the first commercially successful monocoque skis many moons ago. Now Salomon has made its best women’s powder ski ever, the QST Stella 106, that proudly sports “Full Sandwich Sidewalls 360o” or expressed in generic terms, a square sidewall, the very design feature that the monocoque cap obsoleted for several seasons.