Choice on the day

Say, you have a nice quiver of two or three skis. Your quiver covers the entire range of conditions you typically encounter during the season: really hard or icy packed snow, softer and/ or skied-out groomers with maybe bumps and some hard scraped-off patches, softer bumps and crud, skied-out soft snow, and really deep soft fresh snow. 

You think – naturally – that you’re all set because at least one of the skis in your quiver is great in each of the conditions described above. But which ski do you pick?

Changing conditions

Hard-packed or even icy groomers in the morning that get a bit softer during the day, ending in some small bumps or skied-out snow as the sun and many skiers do their thing. I will encounter that. A day that starts with fresh snow that’s all converted to crud and soft bumps in the afternoon. I will encounter that – not on the same day, though.

These are changes my ski of the day will have not much trouble with. The ski that I pick for the hard snow situation will be able to handle these end-of-day bumps without issue, as long as I am not too tired. The same goes for the soft scenario, where my freeride ski has no issues eating up the skied-out pow in the afternoon. 

Even a third in-between scenario of perhaps nice groomers in the morning that turn into powdery bumps during the day, because it snows heavily which impacts visibility severely too… Even in that scenario, a mid-fat ski with good edge hold and carving ability and has a fair amount of rocker and tip shape that creates enough float to handle invisible uneven soft stuff is a ski that’s definitely out there and could very well be the middle ski in my European quiver. 

So, what’s the problem then?

Problem one: condition shifting (during the day) from one ‘envelope’ (range of conditions a ski can handle really well) to another. Take that last scenario, but it snows so much, that by lunchtime, most people have left the slopes and everything, even the marked runs, is pure powder paradise. If there is a risk of this happening, I would take my freeride ski instead of my all-mountain ski. That’s because I would rather ski a freeride ski on a groomer in the morning than not have enough float in the afternoon. But in this case, I would make a conscious choice to ski a ski that is sub-optimal, at least in the morning. That is the trade-off I am willing to accept.

That brings me to the second potential problem: not accepting trade-offs in the choice you make. None of the skis in any quiver can ski all possible conditions really well. There will always be trade-offs. Unless you are able to switch out skis mid-day (which I usually can’t because I tend not to do small laps near my base or car), you will have to make a choice based on the conditions you are likely to encounter and the trade-offs you are willing to make. 

Even if you have quiver, accepting the trade-off is the effect of the choice on the day.