Blister Reviews Skis in Las Leñas, Argentina

Last August, BLISTER conducted a two week test trip to Las Leñas, Argentina, with eight highly anticipated skis for the 2011/2012 season. And when the famous Santa Rosa storm arrived midway through the trip, the scales were tipped from awesome to nothing short of epic. If you like big, fast lines and lots of fresh tracks on a pow day, then you need to make the trip to Las Leñas. There’s no place like it. The terrain, the snow, the Marte lift, the vibe—it’s all too good to do just once, and that’s why we’re going back. This year, with a greater appreciation of the incredible, expansive terrain Las Leñas has to offer, we’re headed south with four reviewers and an even sweeter arsenal of thirteen skis, outerwear, optics, etc. We’re bringing skis from some big-name companies (several of which were designed with the input of some pro athletes you may have heard of), and we are bringing skis from some smaller brands who have set out to build the highest quality skis out there. A ridiculous number of hours, days, and weeks, went into building this list of 12 big-mountain and freestyle-oriented boards that we think have a good chance of dominating Las Leñas. These skis need to be able float in fresh, deal with variable snow, handle some serious speed, and make quick moves in tight spots when there’s no other option (Las Leñas has plenty of wide open aprons, but there are any number of super narrow couloirs to explore). Of course, there are a lot of other really interesting skis that we would have loved to take with us. But fortunately, we’ll have the entire season back in North America to get time on a whole lot more—so be sure to let us know what you’d most like to see reviewed, and we’ll do our best to get on it when the snow starts to fall in the northern hemisphere. In the meantime, start planning your own trip to Las Leñas while we present the lineup for ours. (We’ve even written a guide of how to get there, and you can book your reservations here.) Now check out the skis we selected to head south with us.