Bodacious

The experienced tester can tell in the first 100 yards that the Blizzard Bodacious is going to require some room to express itself. Like leaving the station on a bullet train, it doesn’t take long to realize speed is intrinsic to the experience. The Bodacious aims for the bottom of the mountain and annihilates any snow condition in its path. As stable as Gibraltar, the skier can trust the edge to hold through the thickest porridge or the thinnest ice crust; the Bodacious can’t be knocked off its course by anything made of snow.

2019 Powder

The fattest of the fatties (>113mm) are true specialty sticks, meant for when the snow is so deep even a 108mm won’t float high enough. This reality won’t keep some folks from sporting them every day, but this is lunatic-fringe behavior as hauling a barge around on...

The 2019 Powder Field

Not much has changed since last season. There are no totally new models in this over-served category, and only four, the Salomon QST 118, Fischer Ranger 115, K2 Pinnacle 118 and Bent Chetler 120, tweaked their construction but without changing their shape. Not much...

Finesse Favorites: Easy Access for All

When Atomic first introduced the Magic Powder around 1990, it was a mere curio, a fringe ski for punters in over their heads on a heli trip. Ten years later, the landscape had flipped over so the widest skis were “AK” models made for the guides, not their ducklings....

The Naturals: Brilliant Balance

As I was sorting the Powder skis I’d essayed at Mammoth into Finesse and Power piles, three models emerged that resisted categorization. To pigeonhole them as Power skis would obscure their exceptional willingness to operate from any stance and remain tractable at any...