MissySki
Angel Diva
I was able to locate Black Crows to demo at a couple of Vermont shops after crowdsourcing in an east coast Facebook group, very helpful! There was the option of Sugarbush or Killington with shops locally having them. @lisamamot and I were pretty exited at the idea of trying these skis.. found that the shop near Killington had the demos in both my size and hers, which the Sugarbush option did not, and that Killington had and was still having a crazy amount of fresh snow and decided to do a day trip on Wednesday. @ski diva this was at Forerunner on the access road, they also have the 156 for demo, I think you mentioned that you were interested in trying Black Crows as well.
We ended up with a powder day, and it snowed the whole day while there as well, there wasn't a groomer to be found on the mountain, every trail was powder/tracked powder/bumps, etc., PERFECT conditions to demo these skis because that's exactly what I'm looking for- a ski to replace my east coast powder/bring west skis. These are also the conditions I struggle the most in, I usually get tossed around or in the back seat too much and then my quads tire INCREDIBLY quickly. I was the first person to ride this pair of Camox Birdies as they had just been mounted the night before, I went with the 165 length and I'm 5'4" ~130lbs and consider myself a low advanced skier who uses more finesse than power and can get down most things on any given mountain in the east but certainly has much room for improvement in quite a few areas!
I've never demoed only one pair of skis all day before, and I'm so glad I did this time because I don't think I would have gotten the full experience if I'd only kept them for a few runs like I would at a typical demo day. This is because I was pretty cautious to start day 2 of the season in these conditions, usually I have more time to build up my stamina! The skis felt swively and fun from the get go, but I was also spending some time figuring out how to get my balance in soft snow again as this threw me off a little bit. However, each run got better in that regard and I kept gaining confidence as I skied them until the point where I really started noticing how much less effort it was taking me to ski deep tracked snow and bumps. My early season ski legs were tired sure, but not like they normally are in these conditions even way into the season. I noticed that I wasn't getting bumped around like my usual "powder" skis do, and therefore I wasn't having to struggle and absorb so much of the terrain with my legs, these skis just effortlessly went through everything we threw at them on the mountain. In fact, on some of the gondla rides other people were commenting on how great the conditions were but that the snow was somewhat heavy so a little hard to turn in early season and @lisamamot and I were like "oh we didn't notice the snow being heavy at all actually.." A big point of emphasis was that the visibility was pretty terrible, so you really couldn't make out any definition in the snow tracks and piles and bump lines, and though it was a little disconcerting at first eventually I just started trusting that the skis were going to get me through and I wasn't going to get tossed about unexpectedly like I'm used to.
Sorry for the long winded thoughts, but it was just such a great experience! The pros of this ski to me are that they are super playful and turny underfoot yet also incredibly stable in these conditions. They also clearly allowed me to ski these conditions much much better than I normally can and grew my confidence as I got more used to them during the day. I'm excited to think that this would continue even more if I owned the ski and had time to grow even more used to them. Unfortunately we didn't get to see how they would do on hard snow, but for my particular purposes that's quite irrelavent because I have plenty of skis for any firm type of conditions. I would have liked to see them on a groomer because obviously if I brought them west not everyday is a powder day, but I don't see them being unmanageable given others reviews and how stable they felt in general. The only con I had was that they did feel a little heavy, not so much when I was skiing, but when my feet were dangling on the lift they were certainly heavier than any other ski I own. That being said a) some weight would be saved without the demo bindings of course, b) my legs didn't tire like they normally do in this stuff with light skis so I guess that is saying something, but we didn't ski the entire day either. c) presumably the weight is where some of that stability I enjoyed so much was coming from so I wouldn't want to compromise that regardless. I have to assume that the lightweight skis I currently use for soft snow are part of the reason I get bounced around so much in those conditions and tire out my legs, they are so light that they get deflected constantly whereas these skis just plow through/go up and over everything, etc. effortlessly.
Honestly, the only reason I didn't purchase them right then and there is because I am doing the Ken Jones demo day next week and want to give the other skis on my list a fair shot. Barring anything that's a complete showstopper though, I do believe these skis will become a part of my quiver very soon!
We ended up with a powder day, and it snowed the whole day while there as well, there wasn't a groomer to be found on the mountain, every trail was powder/tracked powder/bumps, etc., PERFECT conditions to demo these skis because that's exactly what I'm looking for- a ski to replace my east coast powder/bring west skis. These are also the conditions I struggle the most in, I usually get tossed around or in the back seat too much and then my quads tire INCREDIBLY quickly. I was the first person to ride this pair of Camox Birdies as they had just been mounted the night before, I went with the 165 length and I'm 5'4" ~130lbs and consider myself a low advanced skier who uses more finesse than power and can get down most things on any given mountain in the east but certainly has much room for improvement in quite a few areas!
I've never demoed only one pair of skis all day before, and I'm so glad I did this time because I don't think I would have gotten the full experience if I'd only kept them for a few runs like I would at a typical demo day. This is because I was pretty cautious to start day 2 of the season in these conditions, usually I have more time to build up my stamina! The skis felt swively and fun from the get go, but I was also spending some time figuring out how to get my balance in soft snow again as this threw me off a little bit. However, each run got better in that regard and I kept gaining confidence as I skied them until the point where I really started noticing how much less effort it was taking me to ski deep tracked snow and bumps. My early season ski legs were tired sure, but not like they normally are in these conditions even way into the season. I noticed that I wasn't getting bumped around like my usual "powder" skis do, and therefore I wasn't having to struggle and absorb so much of the terrain with my legs, these skis just effortlessly went through everything we threw at them on the mountain. In fact, on some of the gondla rides other people were commenting on how great the conditions were but that the snow was somewhat heavy so a little hard to turn in early season and @lisamamot and I were like "oh we didn't notice the snow being heavy at all actually.." A big point of emphasis was that the visibility was pretty terrible, so you really couldn't make out any definition in the snow tracks and piles and bump lines, and though it was a little disconcerting at first eventually I just started trusting that the skis were going to get me through and I wasn't going to get tossed about unexpectedly like I'm used to.
Sorry for the long winded thoughts, but it was just such a great experience! The pros of this ski to me are that they are super playful and turny underfoot yet also incredibly stable in these conditions. They also clearly allowed me to ski these conditions much much better than I normally can and grew my confidence as I got more used to them during the day. I'm excited to think that this would continue even more if I owned the ski and had time to grow even more used to them. Unfortunately we didn't get to see how they would do on hard snow, but for my particular purposes that's quite irrelavent because I have plenty of skis for any firm type of conditions. I would have liked to see them on a groomer because obviously if I brought them west not everyday is a powder day, but I don't see them being unmanageable given others reviews and how stable they felt in general. The only con I had was that they did feel a little heavy, not so much when I was skiing, but when my feet were dangling on the lift they were certainly heavier than any other ski I own. That being said a) some weight would be saved without the demo bindings of course, b) my legs didn't tire like they normally do in this stuff with light skis so I guess that is saying something, but we didn't ski the entire day either. c) presumably the weight is where some of that stability I enjoyed so much was coming from so I wouldn't want to compromise that regardless. I have to assume that the lightweight skis I currently use for soft snow are part of the reason I get bounced around so much in those conditions and tire out my legs, they are so light that they get deflected constantly whereas these skis just plow through/go up and over everything, etc. effortlessly.
Honestly, the only reason I didn't purchase them right then and there is because I am doing the Ken Jones demo day next week and want to give the other skis on my list a fair shot. Barring anything that's a complete showstopper though, I do believe these skis will become a part of my quiver very soon!
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