For the Love of Snow: Skis.

Yep, skis.

A prerequisite for skiing is skis. I've had a lot of skis over the years... Rossignols, Dynastars, Fischer, K2, Research Dynamics, Volant, and so on. The trend over the years has been shorter and fatter--a trend that I totally buy into. The technology advances in the new equipment make skiing both easier and more fun.

Many skiers are fussy about their skis; me, I seem to be more or less happy with whatever I have. In fact, I'm pretty sure than whatever skis I've had have been my favorite. I attribute that to a lack of opportunities to demo different skis. That's alright with me... my key criteria in a pari of skis are:

Stablilty at high speed (45 mph or more)
Stiffness (the stiffer the better--to a point)
Grip--they have to hold an edge on ice
Nimbleness--so I can mash bumps
Float--so I can shred the pow

Since skis are really expensive (models for people my ability level retail at $1000 and up), I've been purchasing all-mountain skis because they are versitile. There's been days when I'd wished I had a pair of 200mm wide pontoons in the powder. Not so much a ski as strapping two reverse snowbards to your feet.

I've gone through three pairs of skis since we seriously started skiing again (2000-01 season). The first were 191cm heavy metal Volant Machetes. These had a high shred-factor as the the name implies. Then I got a pair of 181cm K2 Apache X's. These were the shortest skis I'd ever owned since I was a wee grommet. I loved them. My current skis are 174cm K2 Apache Recons. They are the shortest and fattest skis I've ever owned. I really enjoy them. Plus, they look really cool on the rack.

There is one exception to my favorite ski rule: my tele skis are 1998 K2 Piste Off's that I bought at the ski swap a couple of years ago for $50. It was a desperation purchase. I had been wanting to get a tele rig ever since the Free Heel Festival in 2001. The only problem was that every time I went to the shop I got serious sticker shock. So I have the 190cm Piste Off's that are stiff, narrow and prone to piss one off. No matter, I'm still riding them and am actually getting relatively procient at telemarking.

But, I think I would be a lot happier if I had a pair of these:

Then I could free the heel, free the mind and rip like a stinky hippie. Yea.

I'm going to buy Diane a pair of these Armada Beefcakes. How bitchin' would that be? Totally.

The fun doesn't just apply to skis. Dylan got a LibTech Skate Banana board with patented banana technology and magne-traction. The best part--it's handcrafted near Canada in the U.S. How cool is that?

Enough about skis. Dave Striffler came down last night and we went up today.

Dave has improved significantly since last year. He's moved on from the snowplow to solid intermediate. The best part is that he's a lot faster now. We skied the backside most of the morning with Willamette regular Rick. Dave tore up June's Run.