The new Bodacious is totally different from last year’s, and yet it isn’t.  The new tip and tail taper, the carbon weave reinforcements, the elimination of metal laminates, all contribute to a ski that’s lighter and easier to coax on edge.

But the new Bodacious has to uphold a reputation for blowing powder fields to rubble, and it doesn’t disappoint in this department. Because of its baseline and flex pattern, a 177cm Bodacious feels more connected to the turn than a 186cm Gunsmoke, particularly at the lower edge angles that most skiers apply in powder.

What little power the Bodacious may have lost in its metamorphosis it more than regained in manageability.   All its surgical alterations trimmed the fat that once made it a freight train to steer, transforming the Bodacious into a Finesse ski one doesn’t have to manhandle to move out of the fall line.

A lot of Powder skis don’t steer off the edge as much as they bank off the base; when there isn’t much snow to sink the ski into, they stink. The Bodacious will hold even if the snow only allows the edge to penetrate, a rate treat after riding a boatload of super-wides that earn their Finesse bona fides by being floppy, a sin the Bodacious wouldn’t deign to commit.