I was initially inspired to write about my first days on the Chopstick because my experience was completely the oppositve of several negative reveiws I read of the ski, and I'm glad I trusted Volkl despite the reports of not fun, difficult to turn and heavy. I found the it to be the exact opposite.
I'm not going to go into detail about why I decided to jump on the reverse-camber band-wagon, or completely describe the characterstics of this particular ski. Suffice it to say that the Volkl Chopstick is a fat powder ski, 128mm wide under the foot with a symmetrical rocker, and really original graphics, and that I decided it was time to give them a try. Among all the reverse camber skis out there, I chose the Chopstick because like all Volkl skis, its a bit stiffer than the rest, and per the recommendation of a couple Volkl pros at the TGR premiere, I mounted the ski nearly dead center with Marker Jester bindings. That said, I can't really compare it to any of the others, since this is the only one i've tried. So instead, I'll just recount my experience with it during two full days at Snowbird. The first day had plenty of soft snow left over from the storm the previous day, and lots of wind blown pockets, yet there was enough firm snow to test the ski in a variety of conditions. The second day was a full-on Snowbird powder-fest. A 3-6 inch forecast materialized into 10-14 inches depending on the slope.
Day 1
As soon as I clicked in and paddled over to the Gadzoom lift from my prime parking spot, I knew this was going to be a different experience . The first turns, if you can call them that, were on a groomed blue run. It was incredibly difficult to get the skis up on edge, and even when I did, the slightest bit of crud would catch the giant tips and squirrel them out of control. After a while, I was able to get my balance and carve reasonably well, but it was incredibly tiring and not all that fun. However, when I got to the top of Gad II, and headed for the trees I knew why everyone was raving about reverse camber. The flotation made little 3-4 inche pockets between the trees and moguls feel bottomless. The width along with the rise of the tip, enabled the ski to ride smoothly and confidently over all kinds of crud, powder, and even moguls. To make the tree skiing even more fun the center mount and the rocker made the skis very easy to turn quickly for their size. If I found myself going too fast, a quick smear turn atop a powder mogul dumped speed very easily. Because it hadn't snowed over night, I didn't really find any open areas to linked together turns in untracked snow, but I did find some sparcely tracked steep areas in the clearings skier's right of Gad II lift. Once I found my forward balance over the center of the ski, and learned to trust that the rockered tip would float without having to lean back, I could bomb incredibly fast throug the broken powder, easily hopping on and off terrain features that while covered, still made the terrain more interesting in the early season snowpack. Speaking of hopping, what suprised me the most about the Chopstick was the amount of pop hit had jumping off this and that, even hopping off rollers on groomed runs I got more boost than any other ski I've tried. I also tried skiing switch in wind-blown powder on a groomer, and it was the most effortless switch skiing I've experienced.
Day 2
I really hoped I'd get a day like this during my early season trip, and Utah delivered. Wilbere bowl is one of my favorite runs at Snowbird, and it gets tracked suprisingly slowly. By the time I got there, it had maybe one or two tracks in it, but I basically had untracked powder for 700-800 or so vertical. Wilbere probably had a good 12 inches, but I can't be sure because I certainly did not hit the bottom. Fast wide powder turns were almost like doing GS turns on a groomer. I'm sure I have a long way to go learning to smear my turns, but I found that I could easily flare out the tails to control my speed and turn very precisely without having to dig too deep into the powder, which would usually happen even on my Gun LABs. The Gad II trees were of course wonderful on these skis, and I started to experiment jumping off little lips and terrain features. It took me a little while to figure out the best way to land. I few times I had my weight a bit too far forward, and felt my self going over the bars, but the tips did not dive on me, and were very forgiving. Toward the end of the day, the sun came out, providing great visibility in Little Cloud bowl. Little Cloud bowl has about 2 foot vis in a storm day, so it doesn't really get skied all that much until everying clears. So when I got to the top at 3:00, there were tracks, but he snow was still soft and bombable. This was maybe the most fun I had all day. I could just point the skis down the fall line, making wide smooth turns, and felt more in control than I probably was. I would say that the Chopstick handles all sorts of powder conditions as well or better than my Salomon Gun LABs, and the Guns will probably be kept in their holster except when I'm touring the backcountry. This was probably one of my top 5 powder days, and I'm sure skiing the deep stuff will only get better as I learn the nuances of Pep and Pollard's brand of powder skiing.
Oh, and did I mention that the skis came with their very own badass actual chopsticks? I can't wait to go to Chef Chang's or Brown Sugar when I get back to Boston. |
