Powder Ski Comparisons: Old vs New vs What Should Be Next? (Ep.320)

34 comments on “Powder Ski Comparisons: Old vs New vs What Should Be Next? (Ep.320)”

1. Great stuff!
   I totally agree on the DPS 124 tour comments. The ski is awesome for pow touring. I don’t like the normal 124 pagoda (for other reasons than mentioned in the previous buyers guide), but the tour version is great.

2. LOVED this episode! Thank you so much for the Volkl Shiro shout out, one of my all time favorites. Also fully agree on the Rocker2 122, also a sleeper IMO as the market was frothy at the time. Also a athlete favorite that was cast away as part of a Salomon reset to QST.

   Would love a follow-up that pulls in LINE Prophet 130 comparison.
   Would love to hear how k2 Crescendo ranks against K2 Powabunga.
   Also Curious how G3 Empire stacked up against the BMT 122 and the Faction La Machine.

   Can’t wait for the Faction La Machine (Max) 5 follow-up on the 192 length!

3. Fun pod! Paul was positively buzzing about the Volkl Shiro. I owned that ski in 194cm for a few years and man I just did not like it. I felt like it rocked forward and backward like a boat in open water. I wanted a more stable platform under foot. I also think the rocker tip profile is just antiquated and not as dialed as modern shapes for deep snow. Sure it carved remarkably well for such a wide ski given its traditional sidecut, but that’s the least important factor in a ski that wide.

   • Thanks for listening! The Shiro is honestly not a ski I would buy for myself but there were things I liked about it, mostly it’s non-pow performance for a ski that big. There is something to that ski though and it seems like I’m not the only one who thinks that when watching Jim Ryan use it in 2024. I know a lot of other good skiers who loved it, including as a pow ski but I feel like my Rapture’s do everything the Shire’s did but better and are also still great in pow.

     • …which is why I bought a pair of Folsom Raptures! Based entirely on your review. :) We’ll see how they shake out this season. I chose 192cm, subtle reverse camber, 90/10 fiberglass/carbon, poplar/bamboo/ maple core. Fingers crossed.

4. Great discussion. I’m interested in the Raptures. Folsom is custom. Looking at their website doesn’t tell me the specs of the Rapture you guys were referring to. Can you post the specs? The weight of the skier commenting on them would be helpful too. Thanks.

   • Hi, Lorenzo – you can check out Paul’s full review of the Rapture here:

     https://blisterreview.com/gear-reviews/2021-2022-folsom-rapture

5. Paul, looking back on the 1st gen Koala 119 with the black topsheets, how do you feel about them now? I remember your very positive reviews on a couple of gear30/ blister podcasts back in 2019-2020. It was a pandemic purchase for me (in a 184 length) during that 1st year of the pandemic in 2020 when all the rock bottom spring/ summer clearance sales were going on.

   I took them with me to an Alyeska weekend trip this past March and had a great time in the steeps on the north face. In past years I’ve also taken them out on deep days at crystal mtn in WA and whitefish, MT. I find they charge great on the steeps, and are champs at busting through crud. But on flatter terrain, low speed, and dense wet maritime pow, the stiff shovels aren’t great at planing up on top of 3D snow.

   Maybe you all can do a part 2 of this podcast covering all the great pow skis not yet talked about.

   • Thanks for listening. I still love then OG black Koala and still ski them a fair bit as a reference ski and just because I really like skiing them. I kind of feel like these in a different category that, for lack of a better term, I’d call Resort Pow skis. For sure a good topic for a future podcast though.

6. Can I get a word in for The Moment Ghost train, feel like this is a relevant ski to this conversion.
   And is this where I vote to bring back the Shiro!

   • Hi Vinnie, The closest I ever got skiing a pair was the ~15/16 Exit World which, I believe was based on the Exit World but slightly narrower. I can imagine the Ghost Train being better overall with more width and mass but I did not love the triple camber at least in the pair I had. It’s awesome to see the Ghost Train getting limited runs lately and I’d love to try a pair.

     • Owning the 192cm Faction La Machine Max from last year, I can confirm that it has 1cm of camber. It’s my absolute favourite powder ski ever. I would highly recommend it, try it at least. It skis shorter than it looks, very easy ski, don’t be intimidated by the 192cm.

7. The fat ski episode and not even a mention of arguably the OG of truly fat powder skis, Fatypus. The Alota at 140mm. I had the iRock at 127mm I believe. Absolutely loved them.

   • I thought we mentioned them. we definitely talked about them before we started recording. I know a lot of people who loved the Alota as a guide ski. I haven’t been on a pair yet. I wonder if they’re similar to the Liberty Genome.

     • I am a big fan of the Liberty Genome (140 underfoot) for >12″ powder days. I am based in Big Cottonwood Canyon during the winter, so there are quite a few days where they come out. Almost every day a local looks down at them in line or on the lift in awe and asks what I’m skiing. Bamboo core, so surprisingly light and just pillows the powder out upon landing, ready to take the next turn. Basically, I get more aggressive with these on in powder. 5’11” 170 pounds, and I ski the 194 (with the rocker). My adult son is bigger than me and has the 187’s, which he also loves. I would say they have limited use anywhere other than the Wasatch front, Targhee or Jackson on a big day or Niseko. But in those conditions, they excel.

8. easily top3 best pod of blister all-time. thank you for the great n-1 nerdery! but I still have a conspiracy theory itch that the Pon2oons won’t ever be discussed on this platform no matter how deep :) the convo goes. so you ask and I deliver:
   as a powder hound and ultra ski nerd I skied almost all the skis on this list, just not the Folsoms, Praxis and the Reckoner 124 plus only less wide factions. I really think of the whole list nothing comes even close to toons as far as float, speed, precision, intuitiveness, steep skiing confidence, relative forgiveness, dampness and an all-round (pow specific) good versatility. if you take the purple lotus 138 (had mine 192 mounted with beasts) for example it skis just like a random 118 compared to toons, tip dives even when you center your stance and is slow as fuck. the toons can carve on piste, can ski bumps, can point and shoot, slip and slide, have almost no speed limit are super easy to scrape off those insane speeds even with their stout tails and need no space to turn at all slow to medium-speed turn wise…I could write a bible of testimonials but eat this as a good example of Shanes visionary wisdom:
   on a avy-4 bluebird 50 centimeter on good base mid winter pow day I skied the steepest colouir in pitztal glacier/tirol (basically no hike but a bit of a hidden/scary and thus rarely skied run) which has 1500 meter vert, where the entrance is a 3,5/4 meter wide 300 meter 50degree chute that funnels to this 2,5 meter wide crux with a 90 degree right bend exit into a sharky rockslab zone that has snow coverage only for one skier maybe 2, then its sluffed off. this run is called “schlepperrine” and is a 100% no BS no- fall zone till it releases you after the rockslabs…from there you get 1200meter vert 45-40 degree wide coulie sweeping open big mountain style speed terrain to rage to the cat track. its not supposed to be skied with a fatty, but the toons (white/orange version) rose to the occasion and a had this 100% trust and this invincible feeling that i could turn everywhere (not jump-turning but pivoting the tails, remember this ski is around -10 factory, 2500 grams and 190cm straight tape pull with almost 160mm tips!!!)where my buddy couldn’t..
   the toons also come in 159,169,179, and 189 and you can also downsize em for touring cause the skis can’t sink no matter how hard the flex of your boot is (boots and their flex/geometry are flotation enhancers too!), your height, weight etc.. they basically cannot dive on you! also Paul mentions and prefers the soft tail vs. harder tips thing which is highly controversial imo…I think you can achieve this “soft tails but supportive tips feeling behavior” way more elegant in terms of ski design and with more versatile application assets if you just combine a couple of simple things (thank you Shane):
   1. no sidecut towards the tails but 10mm less in the widest point of the tail (sidecut works against you in 3d and is way more counter intuitive in the tails than in the tips) with lozzo taper and rocker, squared off!
   2. supportive and stouter tail flex but not dead or really hard.
   3. big blunt nose with not to much taper (no r&r ski=>tips at least 25mm wider than footprint underfoot) with a long gradual rocker and high scoop towards the end with not too much rocker-radius in the shovel, softer than the tails but no noodle!
   4. 1-2mm camber for bite, pop, dampness and liveliness (don’t we agree that we all love to arc powdery piste/zipperline soft moguls on a fatty, its such a nice feelin on a big ski!)
   5. enough length, directional mount from around -8 to -10
   6. enough mass but no tank.
   7. good stable woodcore. (maybe not really dense hard-wood like ash or beech, rather “abies alba”, or “pinus sylvestris”)

   generally speaking all pow skis have surely their ability matrix but I think Shanes refined shape with a less wide squared off pintail than underfoot but a big blunt nose without much taper hasn’t strangely really been considered by all those killer indy brands out there…I really do believe there is no faster, more precise(=>SAFER, no brainer on most dangerous days of the season I just almost take the black toons 189 since you are hyper-mobile on the mountain!) and overall more functional shape for deeper conditions. moreover this “hall of fame century benchmark-shape” is also gonna work as an outstanding free touring ski at around 110 underfoot, and I’ll be pressing my own +- 1700-1800 gram 110mm baby toons together with Spurart/Innsbrooklyn this season and mount em maybe with the new atk hybrid that is set to launch in a couple of weeks.

   +1 for the ghost trains, most underrated pow ski (trees, big minigolf) there ever has been!!!

   • This is really cool Ben. I’ve been trying for years to get on a pair of Pontoons or Pon2oons and somehow they’ve still eluded me! I think they’re the only “fun shape” pow ski I haven’t tried. I’ll keep trying. It sounds like you’re most excited about the second gen, “Pon2oon”? How do you compare it to the original? I know a very avid heli skier who swore by the original Pontoons but switched to Powabunga when the Pon2oon replaced it. He hasn’t found anything he likes better than the Powabunga and claims it does everything better than either Pontoon version. I really need to get on both generations if possible!

     I have tried the Folsom G-Wagon and the K2 Crescendo. I had high hopes for the Crescendo and I think it would have been better if it came in a longer length than 186cm. My issue with those skis is that they didn’t float any better than other big skis but were way less balanced when thown in drifted turns or powerslides. I had some dodgy moments on both of them.

     Tips on the Powabunga or the Rotor or a few other 125+ skis will float me even in the really low density snow as well as the G-Wagon or Crescendo but are better in other regards. I also get almost unsinkable tips with the early versions of the 138 that had really high tip rocker although the most recent version doesn’t do that as well for me.

     you’ll have to send me some pics of those custom skis and let us know how they work out for you. also, let me know which Pontoon version you prefer! I’ll see if I can find a pair to try.

9. Gentle suggestion – Blizzard is pronounced as ‘Blizzard”, a super heavy snowfall. No Austrian accent is needed, since it is an English word.

   • Thank you Charlie. I agree 100%! I hope Jonathan reads this.

   • True but it’s also an Austrian word and an Austrian brand, so one could argue theirs is the correct pronunciation. Don’t even get me started on the brutal mispronunciations of Stöckli and Völkl….

     Opportunity for the dullest Gear30 ever, ski brand and model pronunciation!

   • Ha, gentle rejoinder: those in the know know that the way I pronounce it is how the company itself used to pronounce it – which is at least one of the reasons why so many people to this day still pronounce it the way I do.

     How about this: if Blizzard agrees to produce even-an-extremely-limited run of that 1st gen, white Spur with black tips … (even just 25-50 pairs?) then I will promise to change my pronunciation.

     Deal?

     • That would be an acceptable outcome

10. This was a most interesting discussion. I love the idea of a wider powder ski, especially since I’m a bigger dude (195cm/280lbs). What >120mm skis would you recommend for someone relatively new to skiing powder?

    • Hi Titus, Thanks for the kind words. I think there are a bunch of skis that could work for you depending on your preferences. if you’re looking for max flotation that will still do okay getting back to the lift or on firm snow, the Libery Genome comes readily to mind. Take a look at our reviews on the pow skis we mentioned though.

11. So much good info on skis that I’ve never had the pleasure of riding. I’d been eyeing the argyle Spur, and I’m very happy to have been warned off of it.

    I now have so much more appreciation for my 192 Atomic Atlases now. Shovel-driving machines, and I have not had the “plowing” problem that some folks have mentioned in reviews.

    I love my ARGs in the trees but am still figuring out how to ski them fast in the open without feeling they’re not tracking. I was happy to hear this language used when talking about other skis with extreme reverse sidecut.

    ARG question: I own the first generation (got them used for cheap!) — does anybody happen to know how the rocker profile differs from the newer generation?

12. Great episode, thanks Blister!

    Paul, I went back to find that Jim Ryan POV clip of Central Couloir. March of 2024, looks like Shiros on his feet, but the green and black ones? He does have a POV shot of what looks like orange Shiros too, but it’s in Norway.

    I love progressively mounted skis, so your description of the Rocker2 122 got me hot and bothered. Found a pair of used 184s online last night for $189, trigger pulled.

    Not sure how they will slot between my Rossi BO 118s and my Armada ARG IIs, but I’m excited to find out!

13. Hey Paul…what are your thoughts on a powder touring ski that is specifically for low-angle terrain, slower speeds and/or tight trees? I already have the 4Frnt Ravens for less deep conditions.

    By the way, that might have been my all-time favorite Blister podcast. So fun to listen to!

14. Fun conversation,
    Personally I love “fringe” skis, even if they don’t sell well. Anything that gives a unique ride is fun to have, even if they don’t get used much.

    I find Paul’s appreciation for a soft tail odd. Personally I like my powder skis to be stiffer across the whole ski, as that provides more support when landing larger features in deep snow.
    Maybe he likes this as it allows him to get the tails out even when mounted further back. I find that Dr. Forward prefers a more rearward mount point than I do.

    I’d be keen to see more reviews of “weird” skis even from smaller manufacturers. Let’s explore the edges of skiing so we can better define the centre.

15. Damn… when did K2 stop making Pontoons?

    • I think 22/23 but many are still available online, at least here in Europe.

16. Hi Paul and Jonathan, I do like most Blister Podcasts, but the ones with the two of you talking about powder skis I enjoy the most, so this one was great fun :-)!

    It would be great if you do a follow-up and touch on the powder skis missed in this episode. And @Paul could you somewhere on the network post a picture of the white with bamboo Lotus 138?

    Fun fact 1: I have been skiing with CPG for 1 day in 2004

    Fun fact 2: I am Swiss (German native speaker) and you both got Blizzard wrong from a German-speaking perspective and Blizzard is an Austrian ski brand. I will teach you over some beers how to say it right ;-).

    Keep up the good work and hope to meet you one day in AK! I would not need to think twice if invited to come, not sure why Jonathan is hesitating.

17. You missed one: Head Turbine 125. Not a floppy powder noodle, but a true Head for soft/bottomless snow. Probably won’t make your average skier better in powder, but an amazing tool for a technically strong skier. They rip in powder and don’t even notice rain crust or any other shitty untracked snow. My cat skiing buddies refer to mine as my “Dozers” :) Watch Aksel Lund Svindal own it on these in Supervention. (And haul what’s possibly the heaviest skis ever made uphill. Dude was a monster!)

    Great episode. Always awesome to hear Paul’s take and stories. #clydesdale

18. Gotta say that this is my fav type of Gear 30 episode: ‘Let’s just talk about a bunch of awesome skis.’ I could have listened to this all day. Thanks for sharing this one, y’all!!!

19. 2012 Faty-pus A-Lotta Rocker 190 cm, 172-140-158, good rocker in the front, very slight rocker in the tail, a little camber (2mm?) underfoot medium stiff in the front, slightly more in the tail, 22m radius, 10lbs or 4540grams, no taper on those duck bill tips. Unbelievable skis – I bought them for the pond skimming contest but they soon became my go to on the hill, if there was any fresh snow. These skis turn 3″ into 6″, 6″ into a foot and a foot into, well, virtuallly bottomless. They provide an incredibly solid platform yet turn on a dime and blow through anything that gets in their way. I describe them as nimble bulldozers. The sweet spot is huge as they ski really well through the front and equally as well from the back seat – super forgiving. On them, I am a very good powder skier. They also hold their own on the groomers. even hardpack.
    I also own 2012 Armada AK JJ 195cm, 120 underfoot, 5pt sidecut, rocker, camber , rocker, twin tips. they are very good in powder but require a more centered stance (which is too much work and concentration for me). They are much better than the Faty-pus on hard pack being very stiff under foot with their short effective edge and 15m radius. If terrain and conditions were possibly severe, they might be the safer choice. They are also quite heavy.
    The very first fat skis I tried were rentals at Whistler in 2012ish. K2 Hellbents, 132 underfoot, full rocker from the bindings out (like barrel staves). For me a new sensation to have to sit so much in the center with no “support” front or back, but once I adjusted they were a lot of fun, easy turning, great floatation, vey stable. Understandably, they were very sketchy on the cat track but fine on groomers where they were comfortable on their very short effective edge.
    BOTTOM LINE – if you can find a pair of the 2012 A-Lotta Rocker just buy them, you will love them. They are amazing. Faty-pus re-introduced the A-lotta’s last season but they are180cm only and don’t have the rocker so… find a used pair. I’ll be keeping mine forever.