For the Finesse skier, the Salomon QST 99 has a lot to offer. It has a big sweet spot, it responds to relatively low doses of skier-applied pressure, the forebody pulls the skier into a comfortable, medium-radius turn and the tail releases automatically. Best of all, it has the chameleon quality of carving like a champ on groomers yet as soon as it detects soft snow it morphs into a surfy, terrain-absorbing off-piste ski.
By trimming the thickness of its Titanal laminates, Stöckli made the 2018 iteration a little softer tip to tail. This makes the new Stormrider 95 feel more forgiving and easier to bow into an arc that cuts as clean an arc as a Technical ski. Paul Jacobs of California Ski Company composed this panegyric to its virtues: “Stable, powerful and precise. The faster you go, the smoother it skis, yet not difficult to ski at lower speeds. Feels like a Mercedes AMG Hammer, composed over the worst surfaces. Probably the best executed ski on the planet.”
The reason the Stormrider 83 can hold its own against a field of skis designed expressly for the Frontside milieu is because it’s a typically rich, metal-laden, Stöckli construction that wasn’t built to caress the snow but to subjugate it. It doesn’t have to change its normal behavior just because the snow under its bases switches from fluffy to firm.
If the EXP 100 HD sounds like an over-sized carving ski, well, it is. Most of the skis in the All-Mountain West genre reside near the middle of a series of decidedly off-trail skis, whereas the EXP 100 HD sits at the top of an Experience family that’s comprised primarily of Frontside models. As befits the leader of the Experience clan, the 100 is the most powerful, with two sheets of Titanal under the hood, and the most demanding.
The Salomon QST 118 is like the A student who doesn’t want to go to class; it knows how to carve, but it would rather skip all that carving pedantry and smudge its way through life. If challenged to etch a series of clean, long-radius figures it can rise to the occasion, but why carve when you can smear? The QST 118 is so crazy-simple to foot-steer, drifting from turn to turn feels like being carried down the hill.