Somehow, Blizzard figured out how to put sneakers on a freight train.  The SRC rolls out of the station like it was hauling lumber, but once this implacable platform is in motion it develops the reactions of a mongoose. “Crazy fun quick!” exulted Eric Smith from Footloose, compressing into three little words what the SRC Racing is all about.

Feeling quiet while sitting in an activated catapult is no mean feat, but the SRC pulls it off with such equipoise that it makes its pilot feel as confident as it clearly is.  A big, badass plate imparts impenetrable security from any vibration or tendency to wobble, whether one’s stance is relatively upright or laid over like Ligety.

With the intractable solidity of a sumo wrestler married to the airy agility of a ballerina, the SRC is one solid slalom.

As Americans have gravitated to fatter and fatter skis, we’ve lost the art of making short, snappy turns.  Even the skiers who ski well technically don’t make many short turns, in part because wide skis make moving quickly edge to edge either a chore or impossible.

If only we could get everyone to saddle up the Blizzard RC Ti we’d see more short-radius tracks on early-morning groomers.  Some slalom skis make short turns feel like work, but the RC Ti is all about play.  “A really exciting ski that returns a lot of power when you push it… very snappy,” assessed Lou from The Sport Loft.

Zip off the edge is another trait that fatter skis eschew, letting the shape of the tail do the work of turn completion.  The RC Ti won’t tolerate such a lazy attitude, preferring to pop out of the turn so you enter the next one early and on a committed edge.

Despite harboring this storehouse of energy, the RC Ti earned close to our highest marks for slow-speed turns.  The reason it works so well in the lower speed range is that you don’t have to drop your hips to the snow to make it whip around; it responds promptly even if it isn’t raked up to 60°, earning our second-highest aggregate grade for Finesse properties.

The rumor we started that Blizzard created the G-Power FS so that ordinary citizen-skiers could take their shot at breaking the sound barrier is probably apocryphal, but it contains a kernel of truth.  The G-Power is also rumored to be rockered tip and tail, yet it feels so welded to the earth it would take a crowbar to break the edge loose.

Statisticians will observe that the G-Power earned its highest marks for holding a continuous carve at high speed.  If this is your bliss, the G-Power could be your ski, for it loves nothing more than making elongated, unbroken arcs on a corduroy carpet.

Blizzard makes a line of ultra-light alpine touring skis named Zero G, which one might confuse with the G-Power were it not for the fact that Zero G represents a small family of skis and G-Power is the name of a single model that by itself weighs about as much as the entire backcountry clan put together.

The G-Power incorporates patches of carbon at tip and tail to reinforce snow contact in these areas, a task at which it most ably succeeds.  The carbon story always has a lightweight angle, and no doubt the carbon inserts in the G-Power do effectively reduce swing weight, but the G-Power also has every other material in it known to the ski maker’s art, so the overall impression is anything but light.

But once this ski is set in motion, all the fretting over weight is forgotten. All you notice is what you don’t notice: no shock, no vibration, no loss of edge grip and best of all, no effort.  The premium one pays for the G-Power goes into dampening elements that quiet the ride and empower the ski to track unperturbed over and through everything from mid-winter boilerplate to late spring porridge.

Blizzard has been making fine Frontside skis for several years, but as they’ve changed either the construction or the name each of the last few seasons, American skiers may not associate models like the Power X8 with progenitors like the Magnum 8.0 Ti that shared the X8’s ability to take its on-trail skills off-road.

The X8 is called the Power X8 because, somewhat unnervingly, Austrians love to use the word “power” in the names of their skis and bindings.  It might have been more accurate, if less Austrian, to call them the Mellow X8.  It’s a strong ski, no doubt, but it’s neither overly damp nor so energetic it takes control of events.  Instead, it lets the pilot set the pace and the X8 adapts accordingly.

This willingness to take direction extends to the X8’s attitude towards terrain.  “It skied well in variable-to-hard off-piste chop,” wrote the bemused Matt from Footloose, one among several testers to express both surprise at the X8’s all-around competence and its comportment in crappy snow.

If a gander at the price tag causes your blood pressure to suddenly soar, it might restore equilibrium to know the cost includes a suitable binding.  One of the reasons the X8 is so solid yet so supple is the IQ binding system that is solid as cement side to side yet manages to move longitudinally in harmony with the ski’s flex.

It’s in the nature of successful ski brand families to extend the clan as far as reason will allow.  In today’s market, that means either adding or subtracting 10mm of waist width to the icon that first caught traction.  If that flies, repeat.

Sometimes this means the extension of a Big Mountain concept will end up in a category populated primarily with carving clones. So it is with Blizzard’s Latigo, the great-grandson of the category-killing Cochise, a skinny kid surrounded by a field of souped-up, hard snow dragsters.

The Latigo holds its own because it doesn’t forget that the first article of business is to be a gas to ski. Don’t look too closely at the off-piste performance score; the Latigo deserves better but in this category it didn’t get enough exposure to off-trail conditions to press its edge in this arena.  The Latigo exudes fun, flair and flash whether it’s pointed off-piste or on, and its supple flex certainly navigates bumps better than most of the rails in this genre.  Like any young brothers, the Latigo and the Brahma are bound to brawl over the affections of the Frontside skier.

For most men, a Frontside ski represents a destination, whereas for many women a Frontside ski is part of the journey, a stepping stone that will help her attain the skills experts take for granted.

The new Blizzard Cheyenne is a bit of both, enough ski for the on-piste advanced skier yet possessed of a charitable nature that allows lower skill skiers to progress without feeling intimidated. “Easy to ski for intermediates,” confirmed Shirley from Footloose, ”yet awesome for advanced [skiers] on groomers.”

The secret to the Cheyenne’s dual personality lies in its baseline, a reverse camber affair created by flipping the wood core upside down.  Hence its marketing moniker, Flip Core. The long front rocker melts into the rest of the baseline as soon as the Cheyenne is tipped and pressured, enabling it to earn brilliant scores for carving accuracy despite having one of the more aggressive rockers in the category.

It also earned high marks for short-radius turns despite having a turn radius of 17m in a 170cm, which means the tip tucks into the turn quickly enough to persuade the rider she’s on an ultra-quick stick.  What makes the Cheyenne feel so zippy isn’t so much its shape as its weight.  While Blizzard makes no effort to emphasize the point, the Cheyenne is one of the lightest skis in the genre.

We’ll say this for Blizzard and their “All-Mountain” women’s flagship, the Viva X8: they aren’t being patronizing. Built to essentially the same specs as the men’s Power X8, their only sin is to assume that American women want a robust Frontside carver when the current vogue is for a lighter flavor with an all-terrain aptitude.

But this shouldn’t diminish what the Viva X8 brings to the table: a supple carver that rolls edge to edge with the goal of smoothing out any ruffles in the way of its pilot’s path.  Neither overtly powerful nor slavishly forgiving, the Viva X8 is serene on edge even when coaxed off-trail. As befits a ski with all-mountain ambitions, the Viva X8 is unperturbed by dips into the sidecountry, where its elite construction keeps it on course in the crud.

The Brahma isn’t a flashy ski.  It doesn’t have any special cutouts or add-ons adorning its surface, nor is it particularly shapely.  If you putter along with your feet beneath your hips you may never discover what a powerhouse purrs under its demure exterior.

But once you give it the gas and tip it, the Brahma responds like a thoroughbred in the stretch.  “It took whatever I gave it,” said a tester with a race pedigree who knows how to drive a ski hard.  While short turns aren’t its first choice, given enough edge angle it will cut a tight corner.  “You can dance the night away on these skis.  Very lively yet stable,” confirmed another of our testers.

The Brahma is among those All-Mountain East skis that are descended from a much fatter father figure, in its case the 108mm Cochise.  It retains the off-piste inclinations of its bloodlines, with the relatively svelte sidecut and rockered tip of an off-trail ski.  That it handles so well on groomers is a testament to the effectiveness of Blizzard’s unique Flip Core construction.

As the name implies, this design turns the core upside down so it’s naturally molded into a rockered shape.  When tipped and pressured, the rockered tip and (slightly) rockered tail blend seamlessly with the rest of the ski to create complete edge contact from end to end.  This is how a ski with a rockered tip can earn top scores for being early to the edge.  This trait also allows the ski to travel unperturbed through any snow condition in its path, making the Brahma one of the brightest all-terrain stars in the category and a perennial top contender for best one-ski quiver.

The Regulator and Brahma are both Blizzards, but they are Jeckel and Hyde when it comes to their on-hill comportment.  The Regulator is a twin-tip that treats every run like it was recess, time to fool around and forget about the classroom and all those boring lessons about carving.

While the Regulator smears more easily than soft margarine, it’s not a one-trick pony.  If it’s raked up to a high edge it will hold onto a continuous carve, but hard snow and high edge angles aren’t what the Regulator wants to regulate.  It prefers soft snow and an open mind about what constitutes fun. “This ski makes you feel that the entire mountain is a playground, with just enough power to make most anyone feel confident,” wrote Winks of Cal Ski Co.

The Black Pearl is the centerpiece of Blizzard’s all-mountain women’s collection, with a Goldilocks’ waist width that’s not too fat for carving or too skinny for flotation. It’s just right.

“So much fun… in everything,” purred Nancy from Footloose. “It felt completely stable at high speed and also managed the few bumps I could find.”  Kim Collins from California Ski Company concurred, “Responsive and sturdy yet easy to turn and forgiving.  Good for all skier types and conditions,” Kim concluded.

The Black Pearl has become a perennial best seller since it first appeared when Blizzard unveiled their Flip Core collection several seasons ago.  The Pearl has earned coast-to-coast popularity because it delivers the most sought-after quality in a women’s ski: it makes her better.

And not just on the groomers where she was already competent, but in all those more interesting places that previously put a chink in confidence’s armor.  Trees are less intimidating when she knows she can’t possibly bury a tip and moguls lose their menace when her skis slip sinuously through the troughs.

Bigger or more aggressive women might gravitate to a model with metal in it, but for the majority of women who aren’t ultra-aggressive yet still want to progress to the point where they’re comfortable in all kinds of terrain, the Black Pearl continues to shine.