I readily admit to an engrained bias in favor of the Blizzard Bonafide, as a pair has lived in the first row of my ski locker since its inception. I take them everywhere I go because I’m confident there’s no condition on earth they cannot ski, and ski well.
The Bonafide has remained a perennial all-star for skiers because it’s built on sound fundamentals: a wood core made from poplar and beech sandwiched between laminates of multi-directional glass and Titanal. Its Flipcore design connects to the edge early, with no disruption in the snow connection from the modestly rockered forebody through the midsection to its flat, supportive tail.
If one wished to pick a nit, it could be argued that the Bonafide is geared for the more skilled skier. But this is true of virtually all the more torsionally rigid models in the All-Mountain West genre. If you want to tone it down a bit, get it in a shorter length and you, too, can experience one of the greatest skis ever made.
The Blizzard Cochise has been around long enough that it’s become the longest tenured member of the Big Mountain academy. But don’t mistake its age for weakness. Until the Völkl Mantra 102 came along this year, the Cochise had no peer as a balls-to-the-wall crud-buster. It has the turn radius of a blue whale and the construction of a GS race ski. If you’re in its way, I would suggest moving.
The reason the Cochise hasn’t lost its relevance has less to do with how it’s changed than how it hasn’t. No other ski beats it for stability at speed, and we mean in any condition. The dirty little secret that experts know about how to ski chopped-up powder is to step on the gas. The Cochise already knows not to pick a dainty path through the crud but to barrel through it, skimming over what’s still clean and pummeling the rubble. With this kind of power, of course it can ski hard snow, where the Cochise exhibits its prowess as a trench digger. If you have the skills, you can take the Cochise pretty much anywhere and it will dominate.
The Blizzard Rustler 10 wants you to look good, so it makes everything about off-trail skiing easier. There’s a long, central band of Titanal on the top to stabilize the ski underfoot while allowing the tip and tail to twist. The idea is to keep the tapered tip from getting involved with every obstruction it meets; instead of trying to hook up at the top of turn like a hard-snow-oriented ski is meant to do, it politely deflects all rough treatment by bending with the blow. The same basic idea at the tail keeps it from insisting on finishing every arc on a hairline trajectory, as if skiing were trying to emulate figure skating.
A more powerful skier who takes his hard-snow technique with him when he travels off-trail might prefer the more connected feel of the Blizzard Cochise. But for the majority of off-piste skiers, the Rustler 10 is a better fit. When the nearly expert skier really needs help, the Rustler is a godsend. Imagine being in flat light – a common condition when the goods are there to be gotten – and not being able to tell what your tips are going to encounter next. That’s where the Rustler 10’s innate surf-ability takes over, smearing over the unseen obstacles as if they weren’t there.
The position of the Black Pearl 78 in our test over the last two seasons has to be the most anomalous in the entire test. The Frontside category is supposed to the province of dedicated carvers, skis with extravagant sidecuts, shock-sucking interfaces and elevated binding systems. How did this flat, plain Jane with a shallow, off-trail shape and double rockered baseline not only end up in this den of carvers, but leading it in Power points?
One possible answer is the Black Pearl 78 actually is the best carving tool in the Frontside drawer. Its test scores, which admittedly can be misleading, lead the large field in early turn entry, continuous, accurate carving and short-radius turns. That’s a tough trifecta to simply dismiss as anecdotal. Hell, all scores are anecdotal, but we wouldn’t use them if they didn’t tend to accurately reflect behavior.
One stat we don’t capture – because it doesn’t exist – is holding power per ounce, or grip per gram. The 1350g Black Pearl 78 would lap the field. Its relatively tiny, 78mm waist helps it move nimbly edge to edge whether it’s decorating groomers with twin rail tracks or threading through tortuous troughs, the skinniest Pearl in Blizzard’s oyster bed stands out for its ease and accessibility.
At a scant 4mm wider in the waist than the Black Pearl 78, the new 82 shares a lot of its attributes, including a somewhat surprising preference for the consistency of groomed runs over the anything-goes conditions encountered off-trail. Perry Schaffner, like her dad Jim an archetype of racing power and efficiency, filed this report after a couple of turns on the dance floor with the Black Pearl 82:
“The Blizzard Black Pearl in a 173cm length was really great on freshly groomed snow. I can make both large- and short-radius turns very easily and carve while carrying good speed if I want it, but I also have the ability to slow myself down. When I skied off the groomed run into some of the skied-out powder from yesterday it felt like it didn’t perform quite as well as I got bucked around a bit, so I would definitely say you could go in all conditions but it’s probably better to stick towards groom surfaces, especially with the longer length I skied.”
Bear in mind that Perry can load the Black Pearl 82 just looking at it, and the pace at which she felt “bucked around a bit” would win a skiercross. For skiers who don’t have Perry’s power, the Black Pearl 82 feels just right.
