If all you knew about the Line Sick Day 114 were its waist width (114mm), sidecut radius (23.9m) and that it’s tip and tail were tapered, you’d expect it to turn with all the agility and grace of the Exxon Valdez. And you might be right if Line ladled on the Titanal, but the Sick Day 114 is unshackled by metal bonds. It retains the springiness of an all-glass ski, and lo and behold, it steers with ease of a far shapelier ski. Its tapered tip keeps it from diving into a turn at the very top, so it smears its way through turn entry before settling on an edge that rolls comfortably through rubble.

Helping the Sick Day 114 keep its cool in the crud are a quartet of end-to-end carbon stringers dubbed, with Line’s endemic irreverence, Magic Finger Carbon Filaments. The Magic Fingers are inlaid in a maple and Paulownia core that contributes to the Sick Day 114’s ability to remain stable on the groomers and cat-tracks that inevitably interrupt a powder day. Better than you’d expect on-trail for a ski with 20mm of rise in the tip and 8mm in the tail, its natural habitat is crud in all its manifestations. A run riven with countless tracks looks like a briar patch does to Brer Rabbit: the Sick Day 114 can’t wait for you to toss them in it.