bounceswoosh
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
My review of the Armada Stranger:
(Only because I couldn't find a heart emoji)
Yesterday I went to Winter Park with @Kimmyt to take these skis for a whirl. It had snowed the day before, but I had no expectations beyond natural snow that had been groomed overnight. I started the day saying, I have high hopes for these skis - but if I don't like 'em, oh well, I will still make them work for me.
WELL.
We never did get around to skiing groomers; just stayed on Mary Jane. It took me a few runs to adjust to the skis; they're very different from the Zeldas. The Zeldas always want to be on edge and had a much longer turn radius; neither of those are my favorite, so I was often fighting them in 3D snow.
With the Strangers, we went straight to hero soft-snow baby bumps; no groomer warmup run. It may have taken a bit longer to figure them out this way, but it was a price that I happily paid. The Stranger just wants me to chill out, relax, have fun, and smear to my heart's content.
We did several bump runs, some directed skiing (ski patrollers limit the number of people on the slope), and even got a rope drop. The directed skiing (including the rope drop) was in heavy, deep, tricky snow. The ski patroller at the top sternly informed us that we would almost certainly hit rocks and trees (trees?? I think he meant logs. Or, I suppose, the tops of little trees). "This is a black diamond plus run." He was singing my song. And in any case, I've long felt safer on tricky, steep snow with relatively few people than on highly trafficked main runs. Especially early season.
The snow was thick and deep. Snow sharks abounded, ready to scratch up a ski, or grab me and send me tumbling. It was not easy skiing, and it was not smooth skiing, but it was SO worth it.
After a few laps like that, quads destroyed, we were thinking about heading to lunch when we saw a group traversing into the untracked snow beyond our directed run, escorted by two patrollers. We called down, and they said Gold King would be opening soon. In retrospect, seeing Lynsey Dyer's post this morning, I'm pretty sure that it was her crew being escorted for a photo shoot.
So we traversed over to the run we'd been skiing, and there was a patroller who confirmed that Gold King would be opening "soon." This can mean five minutes, or it can mean half an hour, or who knows. We were first in line, but once we started hanging out there, a crew of about 15 people assembled, all eagerly waiting for the rope drop (or, in this case, simply for ski patrol to switch out the Closed sign for a Caution sign). There were dire warnings about how rocky the entrance would be, which led me to a great deal of confusion because there were about 20 feet of minimally rocky traverse before it opened up into glorious, deep, untracked snow.
And yeah, there were rocks. And logs. So many sharks. The deep, heavy snow was somehow still bottomless; you couldn't go fast for fear of nailing a rock. I wasn't the only person who took a slow motion fall and struggled to get up again. Somehow it managed to be heavy, but also to crumble immediately when you tried to put your hands down and get up. Crossing my poles on the surface of the snow (a great trick to help create a platform) only helped so much.
This makes it sound like it was horrible, when in fact it was amazing. Rope drops are just special. And all my skis are rock skis from day one, although I'm really glad I only got scratches and not core shots.
The final run after lunch was down one of the main runs, which had formed some decent bumps at the top, and just soft piles the rest of the way down. By then I was great friends with these skis. They are so smeary and fun and just do what I want them to do without any fuss. I found myself in that amazing state where you're cruising and can feel that subtle unweighting as your skis slide back and forth underneath you. Possibly I found that state because I was too tired to put any effort into driving my skis. With a more demanding ski, that last run is miserable. On these skis, I could just flow along, slarving, doing windshield wipers to rest my legs, and generally still have fun even though my legs were shot. They truly felt like a scaled down version of my favorite ski.
In defense of my quads, I will say that I had done front squats as part of my workout about 36 hours before skiing. They were at peak soreness!
So despite my plan of getting to know The Stranger on groomers, I actually verified that these skis are great in the kinds of conditions I really care about. They're fun in bumps (at least reasonably soft and well formed ones) - and while they're a lot narrower than my powder skis, the huge shovel still helps to keep me from tipping forward in deeper snow. The La Ninas would likely have been better for those deep runs, but these held their own. That was my goal - a ski that's a fun daily driver, but still allows me to enjoy the occasional deep snow surprise. I still don't know what I'll think about them on groomers, and I will happily keep that in mind and hope that I don't have an opportunity to find out this season ;-)
Given the earlier conversation about "powder" skiing, I'm adding these photos as a comment on the difficulty of skiing in natural, uncompacted snow. Note I'm saying uncompacted, not powder. Not every flake that falls from the ski is powder; nor is every untracked run. There's a big difference between blower powder, with that magical floating sensation, and this stuff, which is just old snow that hasn't been skied yet, and may have been wind and sun affected. I'm a decent skier who spends 90% of her time on "terrain" and "3D snow." These photos do NOT communicate how heavy and tricky the snow was, even after it was skied out; I'm surprised to see how high up in the snow I am - I guess these skis do manage to float a bit! My point here is that I look like a hot mess*, but Kim assured me that I looked just fine when I was actually skiing. She reminded me that every skier is continuously adjusting in little (or big) ways, especially in tricky snow. I couldn't get rhythm or momentum going because with almost every turn, I was either avoiding a rock, or hitting a rock. And my thighs were shredded. But you know ... it was still fun!
* Lack of angulation (upper/lower body separation)
* A Frame / bracing on one leg
* Lifting the inside foot
* Getting thrown into the back seat
* Loving it anyway
(Only because I couldn't find a heart emoji)
Yesterday I went to Winter Park with @Kimmyt to take these skis for a whirl. It had snowed the day before, but I had no expectations beyond natural snow that had been groomed overnight. I started the day saying, I have high hopes for these skis - but if I don't like 'em, oh well, I will still make them work for me.
WELL.
We never did get around to skiing groomers; just stayed on Mary Jane. It took me a few runs to adjust to the skis; they're very different from the Zeldas. The Zeldas always want to be on edge and had a much longer turn radius; neither of those are my favorite, so I was often fighting them in 3D snow.
With the Strangers, we went straight to hero soft-snow baby bumps; no groomer warmup run. It may have taken a bit longer to figure them out this way, but it was a price that I happily paid. The Stranger just wants me to chill out, relax, have fun, and smear to my heart's content.
We did several bump runs, some directed skiing (ski patrollers limit the number of people on the slope), and even got a rope drop. The directed skiing (including the rope drop) was in heavy, deep, tricky snow. The ski patroller at the top sternly informed us that we would almost certainly hit rocks and trees (trees?? I think he meant logs. Or, I suppose, the tops of little trees). "This is a black diamond plus run." He was singing my song. And in any case, I've long felt safer on tricky, steep snow with relatively few people than on highly trafficked main runs. Especially early season.
The snow was thick and deep. Snow sharks abounded, ready to scratch up a ski, or grab me and send me tumbling. It was not easy skiing, and it was not smooth skiing, but it was SO worth it.
After a few laps like that, quads destroyed, we were thinking about heading to lunch when we saw a group traversing into the untracked snow beyond our directed run, escorted by two patrollers. We called down, and they said Gold King would be opening soon. In retrospect, seeing Lynsey Dyer's post this morning, I'm pretty sure that it was her crew being escorted for a photo shoot.
So we traversed over to the run we'd been skiing, and there was a patroller who confirmed that Gold King would be opening "soon." This can mean five minutes, or it can mean half an hour, or who knows. We were first in line, but once we started hanging out there, a crew of about 15 people assembled, all eagerly waiting for the rope drop (or, in this case, simply for ski patrol to switch out the Closed sign for a Caution sign). There were dire warnings about how rocky the entrance would be, which led me to a great deal of confusion because there were about 20 feet of minimally rocky traverse before it opened up into glorious, deep, untracked snow.
And yeah, there were rocks. And logs. So many sharks. The deep, heavy snow was somehow still bottomless; you couldn't go fast for fear of nailing a rock. I wasn't the only person who took a slow motion fall and struggled to get up again. Somehow it managed to be heavy, but also to crumble immediately when you tried to put your hands down and get up. Crossing my poles on the surface of the snow (a great trick to help create a platform) only helped so much.
This makes it sound like it was horrible, when in fact it was amazing. Rope drops are just special. And all my skis are rock skis from day one, although I'm really glad I only got scratches and not core shots.
The final run after lunch was down one of the main runs, which had formed some decent bumps at the top, and just soft piles the rest of the way down. By then I was great friends with these skis. They are so smeary and fun and just do what I want them to do without any fuss. I found myself in that amazing state where you're cruising and can feel that subtle unweighting as your skis slide back and forth underneath you. Possibly I found that state because I was too tired to put any effort into driving my skis. With a more demanding ski, that last run is miserable. On these skis, I could just flow along, slarving, doing windshield wipers to rest my legs, and generally still have fun even though my legs were shot. They truly felt like a scaled down version of my favorite ski.
In defense of my quads, I will say that I had done front squats as part of my workout about 36 hours before skiing. They were at peak soreness!
So despite my plan of getting to know The Stranger on groomers, I actually verified that these skis are great in the kinds of conditions I really care about. They're fun in bumps (at least reasonably soft and well formed ones) - and while they're a lot narrower than my powder skis, the huge shovel still helps to keep me from tipping forward in deeper snow. The La Ninas would likely have been better for those deep runs, but these held their own. That was my goal - a ski that's a fun daily driver, but still allows me to enjoy the occasional deep snow surprise. I still don't know what I'll think about them on groomers, and I will happily keep that in mind and hope that I don't have an opportunity to find out this season ;-)
Given the earlier conversation about "powder" skiing, I'm adding these photos as a comment on the difficulty of skiing in natural, uncompacted snow. Note I'm saying uncompacted, not powder. Not every flake that falls from the ski is powder; nor is every untracked run. There's a big difference between blower powder, with that magical floating sensation, and this stuff, which is just old snow that hasn't been skied yet, and may have been wind and sun affected. I'm a decent skier who spends 90% of her time on "terrain" and "3D snow." These photos do NOT communicate how heavy and tricky the snow was, even after it was skied out; I'm surprised to see how high up in the snow I am - I guess these skis do manage to float a bit! My point here is that I look like a hot mess*, but Kim assured me that I looked just fine when I was actually skiing. She reminded me that every skier is continuously adjusting in little (or big) ways, especially in tricky snow. I couldn't get rhythm or momentum going because with almost every turn, I was either avoiding a rock, or hitting a rock. And my thighs were shredded. But you know ... it was still fun!
* Lack of angulation (upper/lower body separation)
* A Frame / bracing on one leg
* Lifting the inside foot
* Getting thrown into the back seat
* Loving it anyway
