The Best Skis of 2021/22

I’m of two minds when it comes to the “best of” business. I realize that many consumers appreciate this shortcut to any further research, take the gold medal as Gospel and act on it. From the designer’s perspective, even though I might make dozens of prototypes, I would still only manufacture one model. From where the ski review purveyor sits, for any given set of criteria, it stands to reason that the ski with highest aggregate score would be the best.

The other side of the coin is that there is no best ski, nor can there be. Within the key All-Mountain categories where most consumers correctly shop, the diversity of on-snow behaviors is astounding. It’s impossible for all these skis to register identically with all the skier types who might consider them. Since there is no one definition of “best,” it’s not possible to identify a single “best” ski for all skiers.

Before delving into the details, allow me to unearth a point that might be lost in the weeds: the definitions of “better” or “best” have nothing to do with product quality. No ski anointed as “best” is likely to live a longer or better life than the ski that placed second, or twenty-second, for that matter.

What makes a ski distinctive can only be partially revealed by data. Each ski possesses a bundle of behaviors, some of which are easier to describe than they are to quantify. You could make a case that the best ski is the one with the largest bundle, but that ignores the nuances of feel that tilt a ski’s predilections in one (desirable) direction or the other.

Another reason the awarding of “Ski of the Year” laurels rubs me the wrong way is that Realskiers.com already sorts each genre by score; handing out another round of medals seems redundant at best. But if the will of the people is to winnow every field down to a single champion, I shall attempt to comply, within reason.

Getting to the point, for the 2021/22 season, I’m again awarding “best in category” status to three skis where there is usually one. My rationale is simple: there are too many flavors, too many behavioral sub-sets to consider to allow a single ski to serve all masters. If I had the know-how, I’d put the top trio on a carousel, giving each equal time at the summit.

Longtime Dear Readers of these pages know that Realskiers.com divides the Alpine ski market into seven segments, but you’ll only find four represented here. The three omissions are Non-FIS Race, Powder and Technical. Their absence is largely due to a serious shortfall in the data department. The only consolation I can offer is that all the models populating the absent genres tend to be superlative at their specialty. There really are no second-best candidates to cut from the herd.

Comparing this year’s selections to last year’s, the alert reader will note the presence of several returning icons. In fact, because of limited model turnover this season, last year’s selections could all be re-anointed and leave it at that, but I’ve introduced a fresh face here and there to add an element of intrigue.

Frontside

The Frontside category reaches down to the first price point, but our focus is on the top of the product pyramid, populated by the upper crust of carving society. Meant for hard snow, their bliss is burying an edge in corduroy. There is a growing presence in the Frontside genre of skis with off-trail baselines and compliant flexes, but these aren’t the best the category has to offer. The elite of the Frontside genre would rather retire than smear a turn.

Blizzard Thunderbird R15 WB

For most of the past decade, Blizzard’s off-trail skis have helped set the standard for excellence, while its carving collection has languished in well-deserved obscurity. That era is over. The Thunderbird R15 WB (for Wide Body, as there’s a skinnier T-bird R15 residing in the Technical genre next door) is an amalgam of Blizzard’s best technologies. It’s an exhilarating mix of energy and solidity.