For the past few seasons, the intense competition for the high-end ski dollar drove ski makers to maintain a galloping pace of product improvement. Even wildly successful models, such as Rossi’s runaway Big Mountain hit, the Soul 7, underwent annual makeovers. The...
Ski testing closely resembles skiing, but it’s not the same. Ski testing requires discipline. The ski tester has to reign in the natural impulse to ski the mountain as an ever-changing amusement park, instead taking the same path over and over. On a free ski run, the...
I just returned Sunday night from the first combined SIA/OR show and I’m still processing all that transpired. In my little corner of the world, the show couldn’t have been any better, but then, trade shows are almost always fertile ground for journalists. But it’s...
You’re first attracted by a ski’s topskin, how it appears in the hand. But you live with the base, where the ski meets the snow. Of all the clues to performance that can be gleaned by examining a pair of new skis plucked off the ski shop wall, perhaps the most...
I’m not anti-social, but left with the choice of skiing by myself or not skiing at all, I’m going skiing. I suppose part of me, the walled-off writer part, is happily misanthropic, but my skiing self is inherently social. The best ski days are those shared with family...
