As Richard pointed out turns are turns, and that’s just what they were on Saturday. This past Saturday was probably one of the earliest times I’ve gotten out skiing since the 1991 Halloween Blizzard. The day after that Blizzard I was up at Wild Mountain enjoying one of the biggest powder days I’ve ever seen in Minnesota to date. Between the man made stuff and the fresh powder I was skiing on over 4 feet of snow that weekend. It was pure bliss.
Anyways this past Saturday marked another year of my 23 years of skiing, yes that’s right I’ve been skiing going on 23 years now. Its hard to believe that since I was the age of 4 I’ve been going year in, year out to Wild Mountain, Trollhaugen, and company for that many years. Granted some years (specially the early years) I maybe got out skiing only a few times a season, but once I got into middle school I was skiing on Average about 50+ days a winter, then in high school I was averaging almost 110+ days of skiing a season, not including my week long trips out west to Colorado during spring break.
Saturday I met up with Richard, Adam, their co-worker Nate and enjoyed a free day of skiing thanks to the demo days going on at Wild. I “pretended” I was with Richard and Dave who work at Continental Ski and Bike in Duluth, MN. So Ski shop reps got to ski for free and got to partake in the ski demo for free. Hell I even got a free dinner thanks to the Elan rep. So even though there were an ass load of people at Wild, I got a free day of skiing, free demo and a free meal to top it off.
The Snow was shitty, the single run that was open, was crowded, and the lift line was long, but I was still enjoying myself. No matter how shitty the conditions are, or how bad of a day I am having, If I am outside, on the snow, either Skiing or Snowmobiling I am happy as a clam, and being out there with friends like Richard and Dave just makes it that much better.
So on top of it being the first turns of the season, I was able to test out quite a few pair of ski’s. Pretty much all the major brands (Elan, Atomic, Rossignol, K2, ect…) had their reps out there pimpin their latest and greatest ski. A few ski’s caught my attention, and intrigued me. Lately I’ve been trying to find a ski that I can use out west but still use here on the off chance we actually get a powder day in the Midwest. Last year in Utah I was riding Dave’s Seth Pistol’s so one of the first ski’s I demo’d was this years Seth’s, which I was a little iffy about because of the mini rocker they put on the tips of the ski now. Granted I still loved the way they ski’d but the mini rocker took away the some of the stiffness in the tip which caused the tips to chatter on the crud on the hill, and that chatter just annoys the hell out of me.
Next ski I really liked were the Elan 888′s. The Trip 8′s were a great ski, nice and wide, good side cut, and solid. I love a solid stiff ski. Which the trip 8′s were. Even though I was on a shorter ski than I wanted to ride, they still were a blast to ski, and I could only imagine how they would be out west it better snow conditions.
The last ski that I liked, the ones that Richard has been telling me to get for a while now, the Rossignol Scratch Brigades. They are a close match to the Seth’s in almost every way, wide, stiff, twin tip, ect…. I rode those for quite a while Saturday, I loved them and hated them at the same time, I loved how light they were, and how stiff they were but they didn’t ski for me light I thought they would, probably the snow conditions, but still I wasn’t too excited to ski them like I was when I first rode the Blizzard X-Cross’s.
So now really it’s a hard choice to figure out what ski I want. For now I’ll wait till later on when it gets closer to the time frame for the out west trip and then I will figure out what I want, till then I’ll keep looking and go from there.
- Josh