The traits that are anathema on hard snow are rejuvenating elixir in the off-trail habitat. The Anima’s soft extremities and limited camber zone create a compliant ski that would rather follow terrain than fight it. Its mutable tip may be mobile, but the Anima imparts a sense of secure edge grip underfoot that endures exposure to ratty terrain. The Anima doesn’t require much impetus to bow into a trustworthy arc that holds its trajectory in rough-and-tumble conditions.
Black Crows has fat figured out. Despite being 122mm across at its narrowest point, the Nocta feels light enough to toss around all day. It’s torsionally fairly soft, which helps a ski this wide be more manageable. If you want to do a short turn, you’ll have to swivel the Nocta rather than carve it, as it’s gradual, long-radius sidecut isn’t cut out for short-turn duty. To compensate, the Nocta responds with a little pop off the edge when its glass laminates are compressed.
Some skis just aim for the next turn; Head’s Kore 117 aims for the bottom of the mountain. If skis were golf clubs, the Kore 117 would be an illegal driver. Head may have finally found the combination of materials that delivers the damping and torsional stiffness that only Titanal has provided up to now. Crud is powerless to deter the Kore 117’s dominating will. On hard snow, the Kore 117 begs to be laid over. The tapered tip isn’t much interested in this condition, but the rest of the ski grabs the snow like Gorilla glue.
The most notable feature of the new K2 Catamaran is its asymmetric tip profile. As the Catamaran is a twin-tip, naturally the tail is likewise asymmetric. In action, the uphill ski engages less with the snow. The asymmetric effect is somewhat mitigated by the Catamaran’s full Powder rocker that keeps its ends off the snow.
The contrast between how the Pinnacle 118 looks and how it skis is striking. It looks like another big barge of a Powder ski, but it handles like an acrobatic All-Mountain model. Unlike most Powder skis that prefer to bank off a wall of snow on their bases, the Pinnacle 118 will hold a carved turn with only its edge in the snow. Because its edge grips so well and its core isn’t too torsionally rigid, the Pinnacle 118 skis feels quicker edge to edge than other skis with its XXXL dimensions.