While the QST 92 isn’t daunted by firm snow, flat terrain isn’t its native habitat. It’s most at home in about of foot of new, or at least recent, snow, where its tapered tip and double rockered baseline do their best work. As I mentioned in last year’s review, that it’s as light as a salad for lunch makes the QST 92 all the easier to toss around in tight quarters like trees and chutes.
The top model in Salomon’s Frontside Performance family of X-Max carvers, the X14 Carbon is easier to steer than a GS race ski, but it has the same notions about how to attack a fall line. (We interrupt this review to report that Salomon’s X-Lab 175, a state-of-the-art non-FIS GS race ski, requires the skier to commit to every turn like it was a 30-year mortgage; relatively speaking, the X14 Carbon only requires the involvement of a one-night stand.)