Downhill Détente
Eighteen of the hottest skis and boards for your lift- or chopper-served shredding pleasure By Marc Peruzzi
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| Gerald Bybee/SF |
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IF YOU WERE to trust Madison Avenue, you might think skiing is a retro sport for graybearded Austrian expatriates and portly ex-extreme skiers who awoke one day and found themselves ruthlessly upstaged by a pack of butt-smokin', baggy-pant-wearin' jibbers on snowboards. And up to a point, you'd be right. In the mid-eighties, snowboarding started
pilfering skiing's manufacturing methods and materials to craft specialized boards for North American terrain. For the next decade, skiers watched dumbfounded as boarders landed jumps fakey on twin-tips, ripped 50-degree Alaskan slopes, and carved trenches in eastern hardpack with big sidecut race boards. In terms of creative energy, skiing was basically
dead.
But never buried. Even between 1993 and 1998, when skier numbers dropped by 13 percent while snowboarders doubled their ranks, skiing began showing a spark of life. It was inevitable. Since both groups share the same trade shows, mountains, and factories, how could snowboarding's vitality not spill over?
Although each side now hates to admit it, this give-and-take has made both sports better. While the ski industry mimics snowboard design, snowboarding swipes construction techniques from skiing. It's an edgy synergy, to be sure, but this alpine glasnost has seen boarders and skiers ripping big mountain faces, halfpipes, glades, and
corduroy—together.
Over the next five pages, we celebrate this balance of power with detailed reviews of the best skis and boards for the four major disciplines of American sliding. But because skiers have always dominated the bumps, we've also included what we think is the coolest mogul ski on the hill. Single-plankers, meet your maker!
INSIDE:
• Alaska Powder
• Parks and Pipes
• Race Carvers
• All-Mountain Freeride
• Mogul Ski
• Books
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