Fred, here are my views on Powder skis. I am not ncessarily in the majority. some people just love Rocker. A lt depends on how you ski, where you ski (Mammoth and Utah is what you have said) and what terrain you seek to ski. So here are some thoughts on powder skis:
Today there is more variety in the technical specs of powder skis than in any other kind of ski. Essentially there are powder skis for every different type of snow and terrain and every different approach to skiing . So the first two questions that someone buying powder skis must ask and answer is first where do I ski most and where will I use these skis most. East coast very different than Colorado and Tahoe or PNW very different from East Coast and the Rockies. The next question is really about camber and rocker which is all the craze today. I owned 3 pairs of skis with some amount of Rocker and I have sold them all. In my opinion, Rocker is really good for someone who has poor technique and needs help skiing powder or for someone that is an extreme skier that is dealing with wind buff in steep lines at high speeds. Rocker does float better in powder and skis with tip and tail rocker pivot every easily. In tight trees they are easy to use because you can resort to pivoting (terrible technique) and the tails will come right around. Some people love this. The problem is when you get into crud and chop. Rockered tips deflect!! They deflect a lot. As well with a lot of tail rocker it is hard to keep the ski on edge in a GS type turn (as the skis just want to pivot). For me this is terrible in chop as I can?t ride the natural sidecut of the ski and power through the chop with the skis on edge. Add to that the tip deflection, and I find myself doing way too much wok in chop on a powder day on rockered skis. That?s why I don?t ski them anymore.
So here is the real clincher for me on not using Rocker. For a decent skier, skiing untracked is actually pretty easy. It is a little easier on Rockered skis, but everything else is harder or worse or requires the wrong approach on rocker. I also find that in untracked I don?t need crazy wide ski either and because I like skis that I can turn and use the sidecut on in the chop I don?t like an ultra wide ski. All these are things to ask and answer when buyiing powder skis.
Mammoth and Snowbird and Alta get skied out real fast. This means you can ski fresh lines for the first few runs and after that you are skiing crud and chop.
Personally I would recommend a ski somewhere between 100 and 115m wide under the foot. Probably the sweet spot for a do everything powder ski is around 100mm under foot and 115 and higher gets you a much less versatile ski. If you will be skiing more powder and fluffier powder and at less than GS speeds (powder 8 turns) I would go with a softer flexing ski. If you are skiing in more chop and heavier snow and you like to go straight and faster I would get a stiffer ski (more like GS and Super G turns in powder).
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