Sunday, January 22, 2012

How To Ruin Your Ski Day: Fat Heavy Skis

There seems to be some kind of universal law, much like the law of gravity, that people who are least able to move fat heavy skis through the backcountry buy fat heavy skis. The endlessly repeated argument for fat heavy skis (which, by no coincidence require fat heavy skins) is "I worked so hard to get to the top of the run, that it is imperative I enjoy the run down and a fat heavy ski enables me to do that."

Of course, what the proponents of fat heavy skis don't realize is that they would be less tired and would enjoy the run down more if they had skinned up on a light ski. They would also have the energy to do more runs, and, would ski better on the way down on whatever number of runs they did manage to do were their legs not tired to the bone from dragging a fat heavy ski (and skin) up the slope.

The other problem with fat heavy skis is that they limit the distance people are willing (even able) to travel so people end up skiing the closest slopes that are frequently skied out because 99% of the other skiers out there are also on fat heavy skis and are similarly unable to venture beyond the closest locations. Sometimes, finding good snow requires that you tour to favorable aspects which may be more distance away. Again, those on fat heavy skis either can't or won't make the journey and so again, end up skiing less than favorable snow conditions because they are limited by their equipment.

In fact, the end result is, the fat heavy skis you got so that the ski down was more enjoyable result in less enjoyable skiing for a whole range of reasons. Given that there are high performance light-weight skis on the market now, often for far less money than people are paying for fat heavy skis, there really is no excuse not to wise up.

An awesome run, but those on fat heavy skis will never make it

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