Into the Woods

I’ve outgrown my big-mountain powder skis and my park/all-mountain/mogul skis are shot from two seasons of bulletproof Killington terrain. So this fall I was hit with the expense of two pairs of skis. It was nice last season to not have to buy any skis, but it was also fun this year to treat myself. Al’s Ski Barn hooked me up with some fair deals on the exact pairs of skis I wanted. Both are last year’s models so I saved a bit there, though I won’t be getting that 42inch LCD TV for a while, or ever.

The big blue skis are hand-made Salomon Gun S-LAB big-mountain powder skis. These should help ski powder and tree runs faster, and with more stability than their predecessor. Last year, these were made in Salomon’s race lab (S-LAB) for their pro skiers, and released a few pairs to the public. The cost last season was, let’s just say, prohibitive. Fortunately, I found a pair left over for near reasonable cost. This season, the ski is going into consumer production in their factory in Romania. While the dimensions and construction remain the same, the quality will not be quite that of the race-room edition that I was lucky enough to snag.

The Oreo-cookie crumble looking skis are Volkl Karma’s. I decided to try something other than a Salomon because I wanted a full wood-core ski that would be light and snappy for moguls and the terrain park, as well as hold it’s own on the cruisers at Killington. My friend Curt grabbed the same skis last season and was happy to see that I endorsed them…blind leading the blind I say. I had both pairs of skis mounted with light, yet safe Salomon S914 bindings.

I’m very excited to try them out though that won’t be for a while. Luckily I have a few days of kiteboarding and wakeboarding to enjoy. Thanks to Wing and Lee for pretending to be excited for me as I unpacked them.