Rocker vs camber? Powder planks.

[grinter]

So I've been watching a lot of skis go by my office window lately, and almost everyone of them is a superwide rockered twintips. I know the rocker and wideness help with floatation in the powder, but my question is are these skis just resort toys or would you put together a touring setup with fatty rockered skis?

[kevino]

Thats a pretty loaded question. Where do you ski? How much money do you have? They can be both. If you ski at a resort that will get lots of powder and good accessible terrain via lift or you have a snowmobile then powder boards are great with normal downhill bindings.

 

On the flip side, if you have the money to put some touring bindings on fat boards then when it snows big you can get some on your own.

 

I guess another question is how fat of skis are you talking about? There are lots of fat skis that can ski groomers and crud just as good any other skis. Or are you talking skis like the Pontoons or ARGs?

[grinter]

I'm at Baker this season, so yeah lift accessed powder shouldn't be a problem. I'm just wondering if people that tour actually use wide powder skis with a rando binding or if they're generally just mounted with downhill bindings and saved for the resort days. The skis I'm seeing are generally significantly wider than the bindings. Also, does the rocker make skinning more difficult, seems like less pressure/contact with the snow. Might be null though as you're likely taking these out on pow days where you're basically wading through the soft stuff and contact would not an issue.

 

Anybody still ski straight edges and laugh at all the sidecut fat skis?

 

Thoughts?Concerns?Experiences?

 

 

[counterfeitfake]

I'm just wondering if people that tour actually use wide powder skis with a rando binding

Yes.

 

or if they're generally just mounted with downhill bindings and saved for the resort days.

Baker gets mostly tracked out in a couple of hours.

 

The skis I'm seeing are generally significantly wider than the bindings.

That is not a problem.

 

Also, does the rocker make skinning more difficult, seems like less pressure/contact with the snow.

No. What's underfoot is most important.

 

Anybody still ski straight edges and laugh at all the sidecut fat skis?

People short on experience and wit.

[mccallboater]

OK, I'll bite. I still ski 'traditional' skis, in my case either my Dynafit mounted Hagen Superlights, a rather rare ski on this side of the pond, or my tele skis, the original Piste Stinks made for K2 by Authier in Austria. Both are great skis. I manage quite well with either set up, having skied since 1960, including quite a few years racing.

 

I must confess though, at 53 I never hesitate to bludgeon with technology what I lack in skill and fitness. So I'm looking at two new (for me) skis, both "rockered" in the modern vernacular. The Dynafit Manaslu and the Armada JJ. Lots of great reviews on the web, plus skiers I know and respect rave about both of them. Any opinions from this crowd?

 

I ski mostly around McCall, which means the backcountry conditions range from good to perfect. My old Miller Softs would have been very happy there. I also have full on slalom skis for the hardpack days at Brundage.

 

[Serenity]

Best bet is to buy a quiver of skis for various conditions. You only live once dude. Make every day count.

[Rafe1234]

Depends on the ski. There are reverse camber skis, zero camber, rocker with camber, etc. At 110 under foot a ski starts to become "fat" in description I think, for which there are lots of kinds in terms stiffness and sidecut. Along with the variance in camber selection this is a huge range of skis.

 

But they are certainly not just resort toys. I got a pair of Megawatts a few years ago and haven't skied on anything else since. I actually got rid of my other skis because they never saw the light of day. They even took me up Baker a few times.

 

The only time touring sucks with fat skis is on steep traverses where a smaller previously cut track is existent or the snow is solid. Otherwise, the benefits of skiing fat rocker style in powder easily outweighs any negative aspect of their design.

[hemp22]

Yeah, fatter skis can work just fine for touring, as long as you make sure your skins are wide enough. don't try to get by with skins that are too narrow underfoot.

Also, if you're breaking trail with fat skis, your friends will love you for the nice big skin track...

[markwebster]

I recently went down a similar road with my wife. Up until last season we were telemark skiing the backcountry with *gasp* 1978 steel edged skinny skis and leather 3 pin boots. Mine were fisher europa 215's. Our reasons for being dinosaurs was they were light, and (we thought) only wimps needed the new heavy tele gear. While we could easily handle the backcountry on our super light setup, skiing the lifts was painful. I could only last 2 hours telemarking on my antique skinny skis. It was easier in 1978...guess I got old.

 

Last year, we upgraded to the modern telesetup:

 

It's a lot more weight on the uphill skin, but a ton more control going down, and I can ski the lifts all day, either telemark or parallel style, the tele setup has so much control I can do either.

 

The Karhu guide (replaced by the madshus annum in 2010/11) has a no-wax bottom, so I can climb and kick and glide using the fish scale bottom, or skin up if it's steep. The 7tm power tour releasable binding pivots at the front for friction less uphill skinning, releases in a bad sideways twisting fall, and is built like a tank.

 

The curved edge on the ski (sidecut) makes turning much easier. I don't miss my straight edged skinny ski at all. You can force a straight edged ski to turn in either downhill or telemark, but it's just more work.

 

I'm assuming the randonee/dynafit world has the same issues. I have some old ramer randonee straight edged skis, which I stopped using because they were so heavy, and now I'm on heavy skis again. Sigh. I do love the telemark turn. Done well, I think it is one of the most graceful turns, and can handle extremely bad snow conditions (breakable crust) with ease.

 

Free the heel, free the mind.

 

[Maine-iac]

I have a pair of Hellbents (122 underfoot) with Dukes on them. I would "tour" with them but I can't afford a pair of skins that large right now. My "touring"/everyday ski is 100 under foot with a rando binding on them.

 

Rocker is fun because you can't dive your tips under.

 

If you are going well above 100 underfoot look for a larger binding because a skinny traditional alpine binding won't give you as much power transfer to a super fat ski. That is a big reason that I have a pair of Dukes on the hellbents.

[Pandora]

I've got setups similar to Maine-iac's: everyday/ski mountaineering setup is 99 underfoot with Dynafits. I also have a pair of Hellbents, with Fritschis, that I toured on exclusively last winter. But I'm in Colorado, and here you need all the float you can get to stay off the rocks that lurk just under the surface all season long. God I miss Washington.