What’s really strange about the Bent Chetler is how weird it isn’t. It takes about two runs to adapt to life à la Chetler, rotating around the multi-axis tip to start a turn, riding the solid midsection for a touch of directional influence and spinning to a conclusion. When it can’t be in the powder that it’s natural habitat, the Chetler keeps its composure where it’s cambered underfoot, so you can ride it comfortably on just a sliver of edge.
If you’re an Old School powder skier who pushes off his tails at the bottom of the turn, the Black Crows Atris is going to feel like home. Of course its double rockered baseline – “double beaked” in Crow-speak – can smear a turn to correct line or shed speed, but the Atris is essentially a directional ski that surfs as a hobby.
There’s a trick to skiing crud: it’s called, “speed.” A powder ski that wilts under pressure discourages the requisite acceleration. The extra support the Atris delivers derives from its classic, cambered baseline underfoot and a tail meant for driving forward, not swiveling sideward. The Atris is a cool combination of youthful, Big Mountain attitude paired with the calm, focused aggression of the experienced pilot.
Head built its Joy women’s line from scratch, without borrowing so much as a gram of Titanal from the hundreds of men’s models it might have cloned and declawed. The weight reference is apt, for Head’s undeniable advantage of being the first and only ski brand to use Graphene™ – carbon reduced to its single-atom essence – gives its women’s skis amazing snow feel. Its one thing to experience the already significant joy of skiing powder; it’s another whole level to feel the Big Joy as it transmits the pearly brush of snow on its bases to your arches, as if you were skiing barefoot.