2nd Look: K2 Pinnacle 95

Dropping Cliffs

The tails of this ski are stable. Quite stable. While the Pinnacle 95 isn’t as wide of a platform as the 185cm Blizzard Cochise, but the stiffness underfoot and in the tails feels similar. I jumped off several cliffs on the Pinnacle 95, and I felt very solid upon landing. Even when my landings were pretty heavy in the backseat, the strong tails were supportive.

Do keep in mind, however, Jonathan’s and my comments about the Pinnacle’s performance in variable snow. If you are going to be jumping off cliffs into tracked-up conditions, high speed exits on the Pinnacle 95 may be a bit trickier to deal with than other skis.

Airtime / Spinning

I took the Pinnacle 95 through the terrain park a few times, and if you are looking for an all mountain ski that performs well spinning through the air … you should consider a different option. The recommended mount point is very far behind the center of the ski, and the result is a very unbalanced feeling when spinning.

As for skiing switch, sure, the rockered tail certainly makes it possible, but the binding mount location and the minimally turned up tail would make it really funky to do so (the Pinnacle 95 has a good amount of tail rocker, but the tails don’t twin up that much). This isn’t a criticism, just a caution that if you’re looking specifically for a freestyle-oriented all-mountain ski, keep looking.

Durability

We’re not in a position to offer longterm durability reports, but I did have one really significant impact on a rock. I was cruising out of a spicy chute at Porters Ski Area and I thought I was in the clear. All of a sudden, SMACK. My left ski made a very harsh direct impact with a hidden boulder. The ski got ripped off, and I was sent tumbling down the hill. Crap! I hope I didn’t just break those skis.

I was hoping for a medium-sized core shot at best. I hiked up to the ski and found only several minor scratches on my base. No coreshots, no edge damage, nothing. Pretty psyched and impressed.

“Playfulness”

I tend to think of playfulness as the quality of a ski to both inspire and allow me to jump off features, butter across rollers, jib (tap) trees and rocks, and spin and flip through the air. In that broad sense, I wouldn’t call the the Pinnacle 95 playful.

The Pinnacle 95 is impressively damp considering how light it is, and I found that it wanted me to stay on the ground (with the exception of doing straight airs off small cliffs). There isn’t a ton of energy in the tails when popping off of features, and because of the traditional mount point, there is too much shovel to permit me to move my weight forward to press out a nose-butter. More than anything, the Pinnacle 95 just didn’t inspire me to get in the air or hit funky transitions.

Down in New Zealand, my most direct comparison to the Pinnacle 95 was the Atomic Vantage 100 LINK. I skied the Pinnacle 95 one day and the Vantage 100 the next at Craigieburn Valley Ski Area. The Vantage 100 instantly felt more lively to me. It has a more forward recommended mount position and some nice camber underfoot that gave the ski a more energetic, poppy feel. To put it bluntly, I just felt like jumping off of things more when the Vantage 100 was on my feet.

Mount Position

For the majority of testing, I skied with my binding at the recommended line. Based on my preference of more center mounted skis, I decided to try the Pinnacle 95 at +2cm for half a day.

The ski felt a little more familiar to me, but I wouldn’t say the performance changed noticeably. The larger factor by far was my stance on the ski: maintaining a centered, neutral stance in variable conditions, and a more forward stance on groomers resulted in a much larger (and more noticeable) gain in performance than moving the bindings forward.

Bottom Line

I found the K2 Pinnacle 95 to be a very friendly resort ski that will suit the right intermediate and advanced skiers. The heavily rockered tips and lack of camber underfoot enable the Pinnacle 95 to stay afloat and pivot easily in soft snow, and these skis (with their tight sidecut radius) are no slouch on groomers.

Variable conditions should be treated with less aggression and more finesse due to the Pinnacle’s soft shovels, but those same shovels—combined with a centered, neutral stance—will allow you to comfortably and easily maneuver through many different types of terrain and conditions.

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