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.
Rossignol created the Hero Master for Masters’ racers who, as in their adolescence, have to economize and use one ski for two events. But the Hero Master could live a long life without ever seeing a start house or a finish gate and still pass on to the celestial podium fulfilled. For this sweetheart loves to open up the gas line and burn fuel by the barrel, flying down America’s groomed highways with its sirens on and lights blazing.
Brilliance on a high edge comes at the price of making a short arc, with the ever-accelerating speeds bigger turns engender. You’ll never get a ski with the 100 Eight’s sidecut to carve a tidy arc, but it has the solution on demand: a fully rockered baseline without a whisper of camber to interfere with a smudged slide. If you want to aim the other way RIGHT NOW, just turn your feet. No unpleasant contortions required.