Every February our team of testers gets to demo next year’s skis. We always hope for a mix of snow conditions so that we can have a really thorough test. This year we went the extra mile, and hit the both California Trade Fairs. Preston and I spent two days at Alpine Meadows skiing firm refrozen snow, and remembering why it’s nice that Mammoth’s Main Lodge is at 8900’. This turned out to be a very good test of our narrower skis, as conditions were “different” at Mammoth the following week. The hard snow was ideal for really hashing out the carve skis and midfats. It was a very enlightening test and definitely affected our buy.

The following week we gathered the full team and continued our test back home at the Stump Alley Express (Chair 2) parking lot. The epic February with 142” of snow had just begun, and Tuesday the 10th was one of the best days ever on Mammoth Mountain. The upper mountain was buried in fresh deep powder, and after it got tracked out around 11 am the wind came up and buffed it smooth the rest of the day. It was so amazingly good that nobody wanted to stop for lunch, pause to write notes, or ski a midfat. Some of our crew had their best run ever about ten times. By 4 pm we were all incredibly tired, and completely stoked. Despite all the general euphoria, we managed to agree on a few very important things. First, rocker is good, really good; no actually it is way better than that. Rocker is as much of a revolution as shaped and fat were fifteen year’s ago. It’s as ground breaking as the first twin tip skis, the 1080 and the Enemy. Did I mention we like rocker? Second, we learned that some carve skis and midfats are as versatile as the manufactures would like for us to believe. Third, Did I mention rocker?

We can’t talk rocker, fat skis, or big mountain skiing without paying respects to Shane McConkey. Shane revolutionized skiing at least twice. First by pioneering fat skis in the steep challenging terrain of the freeskiing competition, second by inventing rockered skis, and making sure they got made. He helped start the International Free Skiers Association, and starred in countless ski movies. We would not be skiing fantastic skis like the Gotama, Gotback or even the 888 if it were not for Shane. He was the most influential skier ever, and a really nice guy. He will be missed.

Click Here for a quick look at our testers and their favorite skis for ’08-’09.