The new Sheeva is an example of an increasingly common phenomenon: the intersection of women’s ski design and the recent explosion in backcountry R&D. Both domains depend on lightweight as a central feature, but you’re unlikely to see the all-business Zero G collection adopt Sheeva’s sassy twin-tip attitude. Its surfy baseline is insanely easy to push around in powder, but there’s enough camber underfoot to keep it on course when the powder is kaput.
The Remedy 102 prevails in soft snow because it puts up no resistance to the stem-turn entry and smeared exits of less skilled skiers. It’s been bred to overlook the foibles of those who can’t wait to develop technical skills before tackling the backcountry. A twin-tip by temperament as well as design, the Remedy 102 thinks every class is recess.
The Carbon Alloy Matrix proves to be the perfect partner for the metal-free Soul 7, magnifying its playful properties and stiffening its resistance to chatter without adding heft or stifling snow feel. The overall reinforcement of the Carbon Alloy Matrix gives the new Soul 7 HD more stability when traveling through day-old crud and more edge grip on those occasions when it has to cruise a groomer.
But please do not confuse “better on groomers” with “made for groomers.” While there’s no question the alterations to the Soul 7 HD palpably improved its stability and edge grip, they didn’t alter its width or the deliberate disengagement of its pretty Koroyd tips and tails.
It’s only natural that a ski like Völkl’s V-Werks Katana would shine when evaluated according to our Realskiers methodology. Our criteria are biased in favor of skis that scribe a continuous arc, a rare sighting in the Big Mountain menagerie. The V-Werks Katana’s presence atop our Power rankings is a testament to its unique capacity for applying carving characteristics to ungroomed terrain.
The new-age Katana skis like a very wide razor. What it doesn’t plane over it slices into with the confidence and panache of a fabulous fencer. Other wide skis don’t ski like this because they aren’t built like this, with 11 sheets of compressed carbon formed into a shape Völkl calls 3D.Ridge. It creates the long-sought balance between longitudinal softness and torsional rigidity that allows the ski to bow easily yet hold with the assurance of an anaconda.
The Backland FR 102’s blend of agility with stability give it an All-Mountain accent with Big Mountain dimensions. It hooks up earlier in the forebody than wider Big Mountain models and its cambered midsection, in conjunction with its absence of metal laminates, injects energy into the end of the turn, an uncommon sensation in the Big Mountain armada of floaty boats.