Although the new Soul 7 HD looks dramatically different from earlier editions, its basic shape and character haven’t changed. While the sexy-looking tip gets all the attention in the store, the Soul 7 HD’s most distinctive feature on the snow is its springy camber pocket that unloads with an elevating pop off the bottom of every arc. This gives the ski its energetic personality that persists in all forms of powder, from Sierra sludge to Wasatch Champagne.
Rossi declines its Experience/Temptation series, which is marketing babble for presenting a hierarchy driven by a relationship between price and performance. The Temptation 84 HD is a step off the pinnacle of the women’s product pyramid, so it isn’t geared to impress experts but to coddle intermediates. The un-tapered sidecut is made to maintain continuous edge contact, the Grail of on-trail technique. With its new HD embellishment, the Temptation 84 has the stuffing to withstand the buffeting inherent in off-trail travel, but it still prefers to engage its tidy, 13m sidecut (162cm) on more consistent terrain.
Rossi’s Super 7 HD is one of those skis with nothing wrong with it that they keep on improving anyway. This time Rossi revamped its Air Tip so its surface is an extension of the same topsheet that covers the rest of the ski. The new Air Tip 2.0 is not only better integrated, it’s also thinner, which seems to help it roll to the edge with the willingness of a svelter ski. On edge at the top of the turn, the attitude of the Super 7 HD is all business, but at the bottom it throws a party, releasing the energy coiled in its fiberglass and carbon core.
The Elite LT Ti is so mellow it permits you to drift without protest, but it’s so exhilarating to give it the gas that you won’t want to scrub speed until the lift line. For the strong skier, the Elite LT Ti is probably the best of the hard snow Rossis. As Matt from Footloose observes, “Comparatively speaking, this ski has more to offer than the Pursuit 800: more performance, dampening, horsepower and versatility.”
The wheelhouse of this slalom are turns that dive in and out of every arc with the staccato speed a ZZ Top guitar solo. “This ski lives up to its name: SHORT TURN,” opined Zac Larsen. “Your legs run out of turns before you run out of mountain.” Brother Luke Larsen was on the same page, advising prospective ST skiers to “buckle up – it’s got a lot of rebound.”