As I arrived at Squaw this morning to ski with ScotsSkier, he had a twinkle in his eye and asked if I wanted to try Philpug's 179cm Augment AM88 (in a soft flex). It turns out I am not as dumb as I look, as I immediately exclaimed "heck yeah"! So up the Funitel we went and then over to Siberia. Squaw got 6" of snow or so the last couple of days and temps remained cold today, so the hill offered beautiful snow conditions--just a GREAT day!
The AM88 took no time to get used to--it was utterly intuitive to ski and required no warm-up. The 179cm AM88 in many ways is similar to my Head 177cm Monster 88's, but even more powerful--about as "race like" as any 80-90mm All Mountain ski I have ever been on. This is the stiffest "soft flex" ski I have ever seen! No other 80-90mm ski I've ever been on has been as powerful and capable on groomers as the AM88--not the AR, V82, Evolv, Deacon, Brahma, Kendo, Enforcer, or Mindbender (although I have not been on the M-Pro 90 or SR88 yet). As with every Augment I have now tried, this AM88 had a beautiful tune. As we whipped down the hill, arcing turns, the AM88 proved to be utterly unflappable--the faster it was skied and the more edge angle applied, the better it felt; no tip flap, no tail slip, no speed limit at sane levels of skiing irrespective of snow surface.
Folks from the US Ski Team trained at Squaw this week over on the Shirley 5th tree run (yes--including Ms. Shiffrin, although we did not see her, as she had a private training day earlier in the week) and we had a chance to take runs down the race prepped, salted course after the gates were pulled. The AM88 offered amazing edge grip ripping down the hard race surface--edge grip superior to many groomer oriented carving skis and equaling that of many non-FIS "race" skis. The AM88 crushes crud, chop, crust, mank, and all the detritus at the edge of trails and in trees. I did not have the opportunity to ski it in deep snow or big moguls (like those on KT22 West Face), but did run it in some smaller/shallower conditions. Compared to the Monster 88, the AM88 has an even higher speed limit, better edge grip, but smaller sweet spot, and definitely feels less comfortable in bumps and perhaps in deeper soft snow. It also was not as fun to ski at slower speed compared to the 177cm Monster 88, nor was turn initiation quite as easy. You have to know how to tip a ski and bend it to fully enjoy the AM88, particularly if you want to vary it's stated 21m turn radius; but if you can do that, you will be rewarded with a stunning ski experience. This ski left a huge grin on my face and I did not want to give them back!
One codicil: I am not sure why Augment gave the 179cm AM88 a 21m turn radius and the 187cm AM98 at 19m turn radius; I agree with Alexzn comments on this subject and would probably swap those numbers if I had that option, but that is an extremely minor and trivial detail for such amazing skis...