Technical Ski Terminology

With winter approaching, all thoughts are on skiing - the best way to maneuver on snow and the ideal health solution to dupe the stranglehold of winter and the deep-creeping, dark depression it tends to bring. In Missoula, a town built in the bottom of an ancient lake, there is often what's called an "inversion" where fog and smoke come together to make smog, which is then trapped in the valley by some kind of atmospheric pressure creating an affect of dreariness for everyone in town who doesn't ski, who doesn't get up to the mountain where it's clear, beautiful, sunshiny skies. I want that zippidy-doo blue bird sunshine for everyone.

Sadly, skiing is too expensive (for people like me who really need it) and my gear is from another time. The zipper on my weather-proof Solomon jacket has broken and the last two seasons, on the one or two times I make it to the mountain, I wear an old green Chinese army jacket with buttons and I sorta feel like a Himalayan mishmash-wearing sherpa-man out there. My boots are fifteen years old, and my skis are probably over ten, thus these oncoming powder dreams of mine always land me back in the reality that the skiing culture has left me behind. And I must catch up!

I love my skis. As a youth I was enamored with K2 and their dedication to extreme skiing, which is what I wanted to do. However, I recall not being that fond of them when I skied them. And then there was Rossignol, which I dearly wanted to like, but same thing, they didn't perform well for me. And then I met these orange Head skis, bought from Gull with a "last-year's ski" discount, and have been pleasantly satisfied since. I want new skis though and took the time the other day to watch an entire powder ski review from a couple guys back in Vermont, where they know a thing or two about skiing.

These guys cracked me up and I just had to blog about it - 2022 Men's Powder Comparison Ski Comparison. Now, I haven't even visited their website, where there's more about all these skis, hopefully, and I could supplement the heck out of this review, but instead I just want to, with my out-from-under-a-rock perspective, focus on the terminology that is so wonderfully working to spread understanding about the potential of modern technology on my skiing. So, while I might not be able to experience these skis at least I can now dream better.

You don't have a sheet of metal in the ski to help hold the bindings on you have it for "binding retention" haha. Here are some more terms to help us catch up with the industry: dramatic tail rocker profile, articulated titanal banding, tail-edge release, even flex-pattern, one-ski quiver, bowed-out under-foot camber perspective, shovel, milling, splay, activate the 3D radius side cut, performance spectrum, macro-block construction, paulownia wood core, snappy energy, mustachioed-shaped, and playful schmereiness.

It's not even skiing anymore, it's an application.

I want to add those Head Kores to my quiver. Which ones do you want?