I was at Snowbird with my son, his friend and his friend’s Dad at the end of January. Great snow week!
We skied with an instructor one of the days who was an absolutely ripping skier - mid 20s former racer who skied had and fast. He was a great guy to ski with, especially for the boys who were skiing fast right behind him, hucking cliffs etc. it was the first time I really realized just how much better my kid is at skiing than I am.
Anyway, we’re stopped on a run looking at a short, steep technical section through some trees, rocks and bumps. There were a few ways to ski it and a couple of exit choices. While I was trying to figure out how to ski it with at least a little bit of flow, a guy skied past us and into the section at maybe 30mph, made two absolutely beautiful turns, threw a massive cork 7, stomped the landing and straightlined out of there.
Turns out it was Ross Tester. I remain impressed by how good of a skier our instructor was, but the gap between him and Tester was just unbelievable. I guess it’s like seeing an NBA player in a pick up game or a touring pro at your local golf course. Still, I was shocked by just how good he was.
Anyway, I think Ross Tester was on Revolt 114s, so I’ll pick those.
Thanks. For me, picking the GPOs was purely hypothetical, in the realm of fun fantasy, as was the premise of this thread.
But this post, recommending the Revolt 114s, brings it back to the real world: the longest Revolt 114 is the next ski I was
gearing up to buy at some point soon, from recommendations of several folks who are better skiers than me but still in a
skill realm that applies to me also.
Also,
It's interesting just how much easier skiing has become with modern rockered fat skis. I spent 15 years at Snowbird and skied regularly with names from the TGR films and household ski industry guys also dabbled in IFSA and FWT a bit before the merge of the tours when big names were there.
Funny enough, at 62 Schmidt has the most impressive feet of any skier I have ever skied with, even better than Marcus Caston.
The other day Scot helped me at the Stockli tent for a couple hours and really liked testing the new AR as he said, "Now that's a real Stockli!". The next day I saw him cruising down to the Lake lift at YC as it goes from a gentle green to a rather steep headwall. As soon as he rolled over the shoulder, he was in a full World Cup hip drag across the headwall on a pair of 193 SR 95s. It's like the length is nothing for him. His daily driver is the SR115 195 and has ten pair in his garage. For a smaller guy he can turn those big skis like feathers.
He made a name for himself hucking cliffs, but what many don't realize is he is in the highest and smallest group of skiers when it comes to ability to work a ski, with one caveat. It has to be long enough. He hates short skis.
I have a theory that the guys who were really good on skinny skis and then handed the big sticks will be the strongest generation skiing has had and will ever know. Handing the fat and rockered skis to those who had to ski strong on skinny skis was like pumping that generation full of steroids.
This is impressive, coming from someone who is among the best recreational skiers I've watched ski firsthand. (Sorry.)
At Winter Park at SIA, a number of times, you were skiing Upper and Lower Hughes when I was. I was pleasantly
surprised that we were still skiing at close to the same pace, that day, after multiple runs, so I could get to enjoy watching
you ski (on the original Stockli WRT ST 172s, with the WRT Binding and rubber binding layer set up, at the time).
I can't recall if at the same time I was skiing the same ski, but your WRT setup version was my favorite ski & setup that day,
for a number of demo runs.
I appreciate what you are saying here about elite skiers who grew up on straight skis, and thus prefer longer skis still.
It makes sense for me out of a strange phenomena I still experience year after year, and get flak for: I often prefer longer skis
than most people on this website, and many folks I ski with (even though I'm not an elite skier). If I get a soft snow fat ski,
or a GS race like ski also, I regularly prefer the longest 19X version, or a near 190 version, even though I'm not a big guy.
It just skis better and with more stability and performance, for me, than the shorter versions I'm supposed to prefer by my size.
I skied on straight, long skis (with a short stint racing) for more than forty years, including for soft snow.
(Again, I'm a good skier, but certainly no elite skier. And I'm an old guy.)
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