Skiing on groomed terrain involves placing your skis on edge and carving turns in the snow. The carved turn, while considered the holy grail of modern ski technique, is less efficient in powder which involves floating on top of the snow. Downhill skis and powder skis have specific features that support their respective function.
Technique Comparison
Once you understand the technique nuances of powder and groomed skiing, it's easy to see why the skis have different features. To perform a carved turn, tip your skis on to the little toe edge of one foot and the big toe edge of the other. Add pressure by shifting your weight to the inside ski, and then add ankle rotary movement to define the turn. In groomed terrain, you will always have more weight on one ski, but don't try this in powder. The weighted ski will sink into the snow and spin you around, says Austrian ski instructor Carl Owen. In an article on FreeRideSkier.com, Owen compares powder skiing to snowboarding, which uses an equal weight distribution. Maintaining equal weight distribution, says Lito Tejada Flores, author of "Breakthrough on Skis," allows the skis to float to the same level of the snow.
Fat vs. Shaped
To continue the snowboarding analogy, observe the shape of a powder ski. These wider skis, often called "phat" skis, create a wider platform, making it easier to keep your weight on both feet. Downhill carving skis, also called shaped or parabolic, are shapely, with small, 65 to 80 mm waists and wider tips and tails. This feature, created in the late 1980s, is called "sidecut." A pronounced sidecut makes it easy to place a ski on edge to carve a turn. Sidecut also affects the turn shape. Short, tight turns are easier on groomed terrain, so a shaped, downhill ski may have a 12m turn radius. Powder conditions slow you down, making it difficult to perform quick, short radius turns. Powder skis may therefore have an 18 to 28m turn radius and 90 to 132 mm waists, which accommodate wider powder turns.
Camber
When someone says "powder skis rock," they may be referring to the rocker technology used in its camber. Place a shaped downhill ski on the ground. You will notice that the waist is dome-shaped. A powder ski uses a reverse camber, which keeps the tips and tails lifted from the snow. This feature prevents what instructors call tip dive, which is the ski's tendency to sink into the powder.
Flex
Carving skis are like knives that cut into the snow. Powder skis are like a knife used for smearing cream cheese on top of it. In fact, one brand of powder skis uses the term "spatula," implying that the ski has a wide, flat and flexible blade. Powder skis are therefore more flexible than carving skis.
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