195 Praxis with Dukes

A late season review. I posted my initial impressions on Chris Knights review thread http://tetongravity.com/forums/showt...=104957&page=2 after several days of skiing resort powder in Feb. My intention was to take these on my annual cat trip at New Years, but an early season injury necessitated changing my trip to March. Having just returned from three glorious days of skiing in stellar conditions in the Selkirk Mountains at Baldface resort and logging more than thirty grand of vertical in the snow these babies were designed for I feel I have put them through their paces well enough for a full review.

I'm 185 and 6'3", 44 years old and am a strong skier with lots of back country experience. My quiver includes, 190 Gotamas, 190 Explosives, 191 Mantras, 186 Legend Pros, 185 G3 Reverends and 186 Head Monsters. The last couple of years I have been using my Gotamas for cat skiing and they have been great. Last year at Baldface had a number of Armada fatties, including the ARG, which I demoed and got me thinking of reverse, reverse skis. This spring, I took advantage of the Praxis pre order and got a pair of 195 Sunsets which I mounted with Dukes.

My early experiences at Whistler were great, and I just skied off the lift and started turning. No problems on the groomers I had to negotiate either. So when I made it up to Baldface to cat ski, I was well acquainted with the ski and had no doubt about it being the right ski for the terrain I was about to ski.

Baldface has a mix of terrain with some big steep open ridges, but more gladed tree runs and often patches of tighter trees to negotiate. There are numerous meadows and clearcuts that you break out into where you can really open it up if you want to. The Praxis were very versatile doing big sweeping powder turns as well as quick smeared turns in the trees. To be skiing a 195cm ski and make an almost instantaneous 90 degree turn in the trees is amazing. At the bottoms of the runs the trees tend to tighten up and the group often follows the guides tracks in through forest to keep it in sight and the trail tends to get kind of fast as it gets packed down. A sharp turn the guide makes in breaking trail is quite a shock hitting on a slick track several others have skied. While I like to stay in the soft keeping the tracks in sight, sometimes you just have to follow the trail to get through. This is where I had problems with my 190 Gotamas, they got going so fast on the trails through the trees I couldn't make the sharp turns and had to take emergency run outs into the soft. Not so with the Praxis. I had a riot ripping along the tight trails at high speed and turning on a dime, then darting out into the fresh where the terrain allowed.

In the open, I tend to ski them in a more traditional style carving big, high speed turns. I thought a lot about where to mount these, having the experience of feeling the ARG were too centered last year and moving the demo bindings back to get rid of the feeling I was going to stuff the tips, something others have also experienced. Going to a longer ski vs the 186 ARG was a good call, as these kind of skis tend to ski shorter than their length would suggest and the longer length adds to the stability. Also the Praxis is a continuous reverse camber with more at the tip and tail and less under foot, vs the flat under foot and slight normal sidecut of the ARG and Lotus 138. Having skied the ARG, I can't say that they handled the firmer conditions, ie skiing cat tracks any better then the Praxis. In fact, one of the other skiers face planted on the ARG's trying to carve them on a Cat track while I did tight slalom turns past him on my Praxis. The continuous curve rocker seems to allow them to smear turns better as they are a true reverse camber instead of a rockered tip and tail. In the trees and tighter terrain, I am glad I did not mount them too far back settling at 104 from the tip, the furtherest back of the recommended range of 102 - 104. Keith at Praxis actually suggested 104 -105 for those wanting a more traditional feel. I thought I should be open minded and let the skis do what they were designed for while keeping in mind my skiing style. There were only a few moments in the open at speed where I had fleeting thoughts of wondering what they would be like at 105, but overall I am happy with them at 104 and certainly would not want them any further forward as it seemed a perfect balance of pivoty maneuverability and high speed stability. If I want a more traditional feel, I will get a big conventional powder ski with a rear biased mount. However, that hole in my quiver seems to be an illusion as when I am a skiing the Praxis I don't really think about what I have on my feet. They just respond to everything I want them to do. There is much less thought about balance and more inclination to let them rip. At super mach speed maybe a die hard charger would want a more traditional big mountain powder ski, but it would come at the cost of the versatility and maneuverability the Praxis offer. It is perfect for the way I want to ski and just makes everything so effortless.

We were skiing with a group of Germans who did these very tight, sort of retro powder turns, purposing up a down, legs tight together like you see in the 80's and 90's ski films. The Euro turn we called it teasing them. I tried a few with the Praxis and it was effortless, bringing back memories of skiing powder in the eighties without the work of long skinny skis. In fact, you can ski them just about any style you want. I tried sliding them sideways in powder, carving them in short, medium and long terms, and landing from 20 footers with no complaints. In one turn, I hit an under snow obstacle, probably a small tree top, and ended up being thrown with all my weight forward on my downhill ski, to the point that I thought the binding would release. To my amazement, the tip did not dive and I was easily able to regain control. No other ski I have would have allowed that kind of recovery!

As I have said, they negotiated the few cat tracks we had to ski with ease. They felt just like any other ski on the packed surface, I just tend to get my weight a little further back than with a normal side cut ski. We hit a nasty melt freeze crust on just one run, and while these are not pleasant on any ski, the Praxis are much less affected by this. I definitely knew it was there, but while I was turning with some kind of grace, the others on normal skis were struggling. Fortunately, it was just a patch. The only other place was some light to medium wind affected snow which the Praxis just sliced through with little notice. Also, crossing over other skiers tracks at high speed didn't deter them much either. They are just a stable, amazing ski in all the conditions we encountered.

They stood up very well to the abuse of stacking them rather unceremoniously in a rack with all the other skis at the back of the cat. This was my biggest worry as most of the skis are rentals and they take a lot of abuse being tossed about in the carrier as well as being tossed in an out of it loading and unloading. Other than a few top sheet scratches they faired very well, better than most other skis I can think of. There are a few very small nicks in the top sheet where it meets the side wall, mostly from skiing, but nothing that suggests anything like the chipping many other skis are prone to like my first generation Legend Pros where chips the size of quarters came off in similar circumstances.

I am looking forward to more days on the Praxis this season. The next step is to try doing some touring on them and I have cut some 130 skins which need just the slightest shave in the tip and tail and are perfect as is in the waist! They are definitely not a quiver of one ski, but they cover a lot more than I thought, now having skied them at the resort and on a backcountry cat trip, and I think some of my other skis may not be seeing as much use as I thought, but the deep powder is what I bought them for and where they excel.