I need to replace my Soul 7s with something of the same general width as my everyday driver. I ski in the Washington Cascades 95% of the time, so snow is abundant but heavy. I know the Soul is much hated by serious skiers, but I had a ton of fun on that ski. It is miserable on hard snow or ice, but on soft snow it is very enjoyable. That said if someone offered me a replacement pair of Souls I would pass. I would like something with better edge hold on firm snow. This ski will be skied nearly every day of the season with my cheater GS skis only coming out on the truly hard snow days. That is maybe once or twice a season in the PNW. On moderately hard snow groomers I can make the Souls carve pretty well, though they are limited in their speed and a bit bouncy/chattery when going fast on firm snow. I would love for this new ski to improve on that performance, but I don't need a carving ski.
I am 6’-2” 180 lbs, 46 years old, I ski roughly 50 days per year, and like 70% of people am an expert. When I get to choose the run it is always double black off-piste. Pow, steeps, trees, chutes, bowls, bumps, drops, jumps, that is my jam. I like to ski very fast, generally much faster than most people skiing the terrain I like to ski. While I do love to ski fast and hard I do make mistakes and those mistakes need to be corrected or I may find myself hitting a tree. To make the corrections I need a ski that is quick to turn with a reasonably soft tail to smear around and dump speed. In the terrain I like to ski the Souls were a good get out of jail free card. On the terrain I have to ski to link the good stuff they were a problem.
The skis I have demoed so far are:
Rossi Sender and Sender TI
K2 Mindbender 108
Völkl Mantra 94 and 102.
Both the Sender and Sender TI felt good. They were like Soul 7s with the weaknesses improved (not fixed). I enjoyed them quite a bit and they felt great in the air, landings were solid.
The Mindbender was ok, but the tails didn’t allow me to unhook them and dump speed or whip a really fast turn when needed.
The Völkls may be fun for some people, but I couldn’t get them off my feet fast enough. I don’t hate many things, but I hated those skis.
Tomorrow I am planning to demo the Enforcer 104 Free. I am also very interested in the Enforcer 110 Free and the Black Crows Atris, but I can't find a place to demo them. I have two friends on the Atris and they both like them a lot. One is a guy who skis a lot like I do and we seem to have similar preferences in skis.
Any help from the ST folk would be appreciated. Thank you.