Most skis in the All-Mountain East category aren’t derived from narrow-waisted, Carving ski chasses, but are descendants of still fatter skis that occupy the All-Mountain West and Big Mountain genres.  This M.O. is right up Line’s alley, where 92mm skis are considered on the skinny side.

Everyone knows Line loves to make twin-tips; not everyone realizes most of their twins are directional skis with long, traditional camber lines and, in models like the Supernatural 92, very little elevation at the tip.  A 5-point sidecut with tapered tip and tail sections suggests a predisposition to smear every turn, but the Supernatural actually gets to the edge in a jiffy and holds on admirably.  “Typical Line,” penned one of our test panel, “Huge sweet spot, easy to ski, FUN to ski!”

In short, the Supernatural 92 doesn’t ski like a floppy pipe-and-park noodle, but like a playful yet purposeful all-mountain ski.  As with the Prophet series that preceded it, the Supernatural models have just enough metal to lend stability without suffocating the pop in their glass elements.  The overriding virtue of the Supernatural 92 is that it provides for great skiing without requiring it of its handler.

What a nifty little ski!  We say “little” because in Line’s world a 92mm ski is a tiny thing, and “Lite” denotes the absence of metal, making this model the little brother to the Supernatural 92. As for the “nifty” part, as long as you don’t try to overpower it, the 92 Lite’s a blast, moving in and out of medium radius turn with energy and enthusiasm. Yes, it has a speed limit, but so does the skier most likely to be its perfect match.  The Finesse skier who would like mass and gravity to apply most of the pressure to the ski while he lopes along the slope will fit the Supernatural 92 Lite program.  Open-minded about turn shape and willing to head off-trail if you are, this is the recreational skier’s little engine that could.

Line removed the Metal Matrix from their Soulmate women’s series this season, a noticeable downgrade in a ski that will spend much of its life on groomed runs.  The new Soulmate 92 is the Supernatural 92 Lite in smaller sizes, so it has similar tastes in terrain (soft) and speed (mellow).  While all this is fine and dandy for the intermediate woman with limited horizons, the Soulmate that was put to pasture was one of the best in its class for the advanced woman.  Their loss is the less ambitious gal’s gain.

Softer than margarine in a bucket, the Soulmate 86 is meant to nurse an entry-level skier – or entry-level adult – into a state of sufficient confidence that they can putter around groomed terrain, no problem. A short turn specialist, as it should be, the Soulmate 86 isn’t insistent on good technique to maintain speed control, as it will happily skid is that’s all its mistress can muster.  The Soulmate 86 is a fine choice for the first-time female buyer; it will feel like liberation itself after the horrors of a fleet rental ski or a battered hand-me-down.

For the Finesse skier who skis most of the time in an upright stance, the issue with this category is that it can take too much effort to tilt the ski to a high edge angle where it will ride a clean edge instead of smudging its way through a perpetual drift.  The Line Supernatural 100 solves this conundrum by finding the edge early and letting itself be steered even if there’s only a few mm’s of ski in the snow.

Line began by making the mini-skis known as skiboards, branched out to twin-tip Pipe & Park skis and gradually infiltrated the all-mountain segment without ever losing their allegiance to the youth market.   Based on their history and reputation, you’d expect all Lines to be center-mounted and smear every turn like a butter knife.  Yet Line has been making directional, cambered all-mountain skis for years and anyone whose nickname isn’t Mongo should consider them a viable option.

“Smooth like aged Scotch,” muses Eric from Footloose, putting his finger on the attribute that best defines the Line Supernatural experience. The Supernatural 100 is so supple it feels like it would wrap around an ice sculpture, yet when given full throttle it holds its own.  As another Footloose tester, Michael, proclaimed, “Fun, stable and responsive.  Can do quick chute turns, straight line or carve on edge.”  That’s a testament to virtuosity that’s hard to beat whether you’re part of the youth market or partly responsible for the youth market.

We admit that when we saw that SKIING magazine had awarded Line’s Sick Day 95 as their 2014 Ski of the Year, we wondered it there weren’t a ganja dispensary in the cafeteria of the rag’s Boulder, Colorado offices.  We still wouldn’t classify it as a world-beater, but we have come to appreciate the behaviors that found such favor with SKIING.  Interestingly, the Sick Bay 95 really isn’t an avatar of the avant-garde, but a traditional (if increasingly rare) construction with just a little lift at tip and tail.

If the Sick Day 95 feels peppier and more active off the edge than is the norm in this well-rockered genre, it’s because as a cambered fiberglass torsion box it’s a coiled spring waiting to be loaded.  Put all this energy on a 95mm–waisted frame and you have a tool that will carve, pounce and float in equal measures. If you’re looking for an all-terrain ride that ‘s light, playful as a pup and easy to ski, the Sick Day 95 could be your Ski of the Year.

We don’t normally report on Pipe & Park models. Suffice it to say, there are far more credible sources on the subject.  But as its name suggests, the Blend isn’t a one-trick pony.  It’s a park-pipe-pow-whatever pony, with an all-terrain geometry that travels well outside the man-made playgrounds in the park.  “A fantastic balance of park and all-mountain traits.  Soft tips and stiffer tails allow the ski to jib and tip butter with a strong turn finish,” said Scott from Aspen Ski and Board, and who are we to disagree?

Skiers who want to feed their jibbing jones a diet of all-natural terrain features should check out what the Blend serves up.

Line changed the popular Bacon this year, and our jury couldn’t be more divided on the subject.  “Too squirrelly,” one tester cautions, while another proclaims the new Bacon “a full-fledged, go-anywhere, do-anything ski.”  “Not for adults,” sniffed another Negative Nelly.  “The whole mountain is your playground,” counters a fan.

Why the deep convictions on both sides of the Bacon case?  Because, in part thanks to brands like Line, there really are two completely different ways of skiing the mountain nowadays.  Skis with traditional values like the Kästle MX83 can’t make the moves that Sir Francis manufactures on a whim, and if you switch the argument around, twin-tip style, the point remains the same.  Different styles dictate different designs, and the Bacon is all about buttering.

The Sick Day 102 takes the idea of a day off and expands it into a lifestyle; this ski isn’t going to show up if you’re going to make skiing feel like work.  With a lot more tip rocker and slightly less camber than the Sick Day 95, the 102 would rather surf than carve.  Lightweight for its width, the Sick Day 102 is easily spun side-to-side, even in deep snow.  As befits a Finesse ski, the Sick Day 102 doesn’t try to pulverize a crud field as much as ride above the chaos.  “Floats on top instead of powering through crud,” confirms Eric from Footloose, adding, “Light weight is nice.”

Because of their considerable girth, Big Mountain skis can feel ponderous on the foot. You feel less like you’re riding a porpoise and more like you’re driving a plow.  The Sick Day 110 is decidedly more of the porpoise school.  It cuts a tighter arc than you expect from a ski 110mm underfoot, and its lightweight construction contributes to the sensation of quickness edge to edge.

This makes the Sick Day 110 easy to steer in the slim slots through the trees and responsive enough to negotiate soft bumps. A bull of a skier will overpower it, but those who ride with a light rein will enjoy its relative agility.  A dab of camber creates hard snow behavior that’s better than one might anticipate for a ski with such a rockered tip, but that doesn’t mean this 110 wouldn’t prefer to spend its sick day in powder.

Once the waist width of the Supernatural design climbs to 108mm, all pretense of Frontside facility is suppressed in favor of more buoyancy in sidecountry pow.  As long as you’re heading for terrain where sno-cats have never roamed, the Supernatural 108 will be in its wheelhouse. It moves through choppy snow with confidence, with just enough power and pop to lend energy to turn transitions.

Like many wide skis, the Sick Day 108 is best when conditions allow it to bank off a wall of snow rather than trying to plunge 2mm of edge into 1mm of glistening hardpack.  Responsive to input from a traditional skier, the Supernatural 108 has a better balance of Finesse and Power properties than either of the Sick Day models it co-exists with in the Big Mountain pantheon.

In case you haven’t yet gotten the word about Line, their boards are the epitome of Finesse as we define the term at realskiers.  Finesse is our shorthand code for a ski that behaves itself at low speeds, responds to subtle pressure, possesses a large sweet spot, won’t quibble if you bobble and generally makes life easier rather than more precise.  That’s the Pandora 110 in a nutshell.  The more aggro gals with already developed Big Mountain skills should probably pass on the Pandora 110, but those who don’t bomb down the mountain but still enjoy powder as much as the next lady in line should consider making it their second ski.

The Magnum Opus is just kidding around. It doesn’t have a serious bone in its body. It wants to plane across the pow, toss it sideways to brake just before the cliff drop – take it backwards if you like as the flex is symmetrical – bounce off the nearest old-growth bark, tip butter the last berm and gun it to the landing zone where the heli awaits.  We assume there’s a heli involved because if the Magnum Opus doesn’t have its own soft snow to sink into, it’s as unmanageable as a two-year old with a sugar buzz.

Someone somewhere is skiing the Supernatural 115 as his everyday ski. That person is certifiably insane.  Good luck deflecting the Supernatural 115 out of the fall line on hard snow where it doesn’t have anything to push against.  The time it takes it lift the ski to a high enough edge angle to make a short turn can be measured with a sundial, so speed control inevitably involves smearing the whole operation sideways.  We’ve reviewed Line 115’s in the past that were supple and easy to bow; let’s just say the Supernatural 115 doesn’t seem to share the same bloodlines.