Head did an amazing job of positioning its Kore series as “light done right,” catching the “Lighter is Better” wave with the right message at the right time. The brand’s focus on the light part of the story was so effective it overshadowed the real point of the slogan, the “done right” bit. What makes the Kore 117 isn’t that it’s ultralight – it’s not close to being the lightest in the Powder genre – but that it’s freakishly powerful.
The deeply tapered tip acts more like a bumper than an avid turn initiator and the rounded tail is intended to release the turn as if it were a wounded sparrow. Right underfoot the sidecut is fairly straight, so the center section can be foot-steered more easily. What keeps the Kore 117 on track in choppy chunder is its overall stiffness. Thanks to Graphene’s absurd strength to weight ratio, the Kore 117 can be as resistant to twisting and bending as Head’s engineers want it to be.
K2 flipped its entire freeride family this year, closing the Pinnacle period and beginning the Mindbender era. Mindbenders come in two flavors, with a Titanal yoke or a variable carbon weave as the principal structural component. Mindful of the need to keep fat skis on a diet, the Mindbender 116C is of the metal-free variety. The dip in torsional rigidity makes the Mindbender 116C feel narrower when it’s tipped and pressured, so traditional powder technique’s rhythmic turning style fits its strong suit.
But if you never attempt to stand on the edge, you can still smear your way along just by twisting your feet sideways. Not being as stiff or heavy as a Ti-laden model, the Mindbender 116C is easier to manhandle when necessary and never refuses an invitation to drift around a turn. As you’d expect from the Kings of Rocker at K2, the rocker at both tip and tail are long and high, creating a predisposition to bank off the base rather than carve on the edge.
To the degree that there’s a generational rift splitting the Powder category in two – Boomers still holding onto the idea that technical skiing can translate to bottomless snow, while Millennials’ idea of powder technique is to get airborne as often as possible – the Catamaran lands squarely (switch, of course) on the side of the kinder. The Catamaran’s signature asymmetric sidecut presumably helps keep this natural drifter from getting in its own way, but the forebody is so rockered the imbalance between inside and outside effective edge length is disguised.
The Catamaran’s tail is also rockered, but not to the point where it can’t support someone tossing a gainer into a couloir. This is, after all, an athlete-driven ski, with Sean Pettit and Pep Fujas lending their street cred to its popularity. How well what they regard as de rigeur is adapted to your personal, inimitable style, I leave entirely up to you.
There’s a lot of subtext to the Sick Day collection, of which the 114 is the fattest and ipso facto the floatiest. Sick days are all about not showing up, and with a tip rocker that rises two centimeters off the deck, mated with a pulled-back forward contact point, the Sick Day 114 always cuts the first class. Even when it’s asked to turn nicely, it doesn’t sit up straight but sort of slouches through the turn. Riding a high edge on a ski this wide is a lot like work, so it drifts through the turn stress-free.
If this sounds like the Sick Day 114 would rather get terminal acne than carve a turn, let’s just say it performs like the solid “C” student that surprises you on test day. It’s actually very simple to steer, taking the hint from light pressure to find its way across the fall line. Its most unexpected talent lies in short turns at slow speed, not normally in the Powder ski playbook. Of course it doesn’t make short, carved turns, but it smears its way side to side without a hitch or a great deal of pilot input.
The Blizzard Bodacious has been around long enough to collect a pension, yet it remains one of the most badass big skis you can buy, bursting with youthful exuberance. Only one other ski in the genre, Nordica’s Enforcer 115 Free, deploys two sheets of Titanal, which in a ski of the Bodacious’ gargantuan dimensions creates a crud-buster with the power of a Panzer. Once they’re pointed downhill, momentum is not the problem, but keeping up with their preferred pace can be.
Because it’s built like an all-mountain ski, its ability to hold an edge is well above average for the genre. Not that you want always to ride the edge on a ski with a 30.5m sidecut radius (186cm), but the Bodacious won’t back down even on boilerplate so you could ski it – and ski it well – in any condition. And should you get in trouble and need to pull the ripcord by straight-lining to safety, no other Powder ski is as stable at speed as this Blizzard.
