I finally did it!

[surfsnowgirl]

Its not likely you'll be able to find the Charisma for demo next season since this is the last year for it. This year my shop did have a few of last years various model skis for demo but I don't see that too often. Its usually the current model stock that's up for demo. You'll have lots of choices though when next season starts. You might even want to try the Flair, the replacement for the Charisma. Demoing is so very fun.

 

[maggie198]

Where in Pa do you ski...a friend used to have a house near Elk. A spent a few years driving from LI to her house in Staten Island, then off to Elk. It was a fun mountain, and good times.

Oh, Elk remains a fun mountain! If you get a chance revisit it. I consider it my home mountain, even though it's 3 hours each way. It's where I ski, unless I'm taking a trip to NH, Maine, or Vermont. During ski season I'm usually there at least one weekend day, but often we stay overnight in Clarks Summit and ski Sat.and Sun.

I've found that prices go down on discontinued skis, no matter how good their reputation has been. Most shops want to get rid of them to make room for new stock. I have run across an occasional shop that keeps their discontinued skis priced rather high, imo (I do visit every ski shop I happen to drive by). That's where online shopping and the competitiveness of the market help out. My last two ski purchases were on skis that were being discontinued or the graphics were radically changing, but were very popular skis - the Black Pearl (1st year graphics) and the Hells Belles (a goner!). Whereas a shop in NH wanted to keep the HB price high, at the end of March, because they were a "great ski, we'll sell them at the tent sale", a shop in the Tahoe area was very, very cheap.