If you drop the reins and put the Cochise in charge, “no terrain can stand in its way,” as Eric from Footloose confirms. This is one ski that won’t back down in the face of adversity, no matter what form it takes, be it wind crust, corn that’s turned to porridge or simply whatever’s still left to plunder after 11:00 AM on a powder day.
If this sounds like the Cochise hasn’t changed much after a couple of make-overs to thin the core and add carbon to the ends of its Flip Core, well, it has changed and it hasn’t. There’s no question it’s become more user-friendly as far as its pilot is concerned, but it continues to want to dominate whatever off-road condition it confronts.
A year ago Blizzard drank a dram of the “Lighter is better!” Kool-Aid and stripped the metal laminates out of the Bodacious. A more visible amendment was the substitution of carbon extensions at the tip and tail to trim further fat and lower swing weight.
The Bodacious went from a battleship to a destroyer, still a formidable vessel, but one more able to maneuver in tight quarters, such as chute entries and trees. Its crash diet notwithstanding, the Bodacious still skis big; it’s hard to overlook a 118mm waist at the heart of a 27m radius sidecut. But it doesn’t ski “look out below!” large; the “Biggest Loser” trim-a-thon it endured last year was a massive ease infusion, giving the Bodacious more fast-twitch muscle.
So how does this little pixie hold its own in a rugged crowd like the women’s Frontside genre? To begin with the baseline, yes, its Carbon Flip Core is substantially rockered, but it takes almost no load to tip and press it into a continuous arc. The Cheyenne fits in among our Finesse Favorites because it’s unapologetically easy to ski whether the snow is groomed or classified under “Other.” Women who are intimidated by bumps yet can’t resist the challenge of confronting them will find the Cheyenne in their court.
If you are an aficionado of twin-tip design, then the Blizzard Gunsmoke is your kind of ski. Characteristic of the genre, the Gunsmoke maintains a loose connection to the snow whether it’s soft or hard. Compared to the down-the-fall-line orientation of the Bodacious, the Gunsmoke is a swivel stick.
But compared to many other twin tips, the Gunsmoke is a paradigm of stability. It pushes piles of set-up crud aside like a super villain parting a crowd of civilians. Skis 114mm wide at the waist aren’t particularly easy to hoist up to a high edge, but if you have the skills to get the Gunsmoke there, it holds.
If we were to categorize skis according to their attitude as opposed to their actual dimensions, the Blizzard Latigo wouldn’t even be in the Frontside family. The grandchild of the burly Cochise, the Latigo’s lineage is all about adapting to off-road conditions. That it still connects so well on groomers is testament to the clever inversion of conventional wisdom embodied in Blizzard’s Flip Core.
