The Blizzard Bonafide has been at or near the top of our All-Mountain West rankings since it burst on the scene about a decade ago. While it’s undergone four or five tweaks since its debut, its enduring excellence is due primarily to what hasn’t changed: the original Flipcore construction that removes all stress from the rocker/camber transition. As soon as the ski is pressured, the transition zone disappears and the full length of the ski finds the snow. A Bonafide feels engaged from tip to tail because it is. This is the foundational reason for its sustained success.
Over its relatively long lifespan, the Bonafide has found a few thorns in all the roses thrown its way. One criticism is that its brawny build is best managed by experts, and there’s something to this claim in that the Bonafide performs better with some energy flowing through it, meaning it likes to be ridden fast. Some find it boring and wonder what the big deal is. In the Bonafide’s defense, all high-performance skis perform better under an expert’s guidance and an affinity for speed is not, by itself, a demerit. Furthermore, if you want rebound energy out of a Bonafide you have to load it. If you just stand there looking cute, it won’t react because you haven’t told it to.
While there are worse problems to have, being known as an experts-only ski is a concern nonetheless, one Blizzard addressed last year with the introduction of the TrueBlend core. The objective of TrueBlend was a smooth, round flex adapted for every size, married to a flex pattern and baseline likewise adapted by length. The key to its execution was the precise location of denser strips of beech in a predominantly poplar core. Each size was treated like its own model, so the shorter skis were also softer and more accessible to lighter and lower skill skiers.
“There’s nothing this ski won’t do with ease,” comments Jim McGee of Peter Glenn. “It won’t overwhelm a strong intermediate but will really reward the expert,” he concludes.
TrueBlend’s specificity by length magnifies the importance of size selection. The 189cm likes to run with the throttle open; if you’d prefer to tighten up the sidecut radius and have a little more camber underfoot, the 183cm is a wiser choice. The 177cm Bonafide 97 is easily managed by skiers who prefer to canter rather than gallop, and doesn’t require an extra kick of testosterone to make it responsive.
Any ski in the All-Mountain West genre has to be able to manage chopped-up crud, as that’s about as close to a pristine snowfield as an in-bounds skier is likely to find after 9:30 in the morning. There’s no better proving ground for the Bonafide 97’s supreme talent: smashing through uneven, tracked up powder as if it were buttery smooth. Yes, it takes some speed to do this, but that’s how to ski heavy chop.
If you’ve never tried a Bonafide, listen to the testimony of Peter Glenn’s Mark Rafferty after his first date with a Bonnie: “Wow! After skiing the Bonafide, I’m wondering, where have you been my whole life? My bad. This is a gorgeous ski for ripping strong, fast turns and feeling like it’s working with you 100 percent. So smooth. So confidence reinforcing. On scratchy hard pack, right there with you. On softer snow, it seems to cheer you on. A supreme ski for the expert, but not intimidating for a better intermediate. Yes, I love this ski,” confesses the thoroughly smitten Rafferty.
No one has yet made a more terrain-agnostic ski than the Bonafide 97, which remains one of the best all-terrain skis of this, or any other, generation.
