First Day of the Season

The waiting game is over and the strange El Nino rains stopped to reveal an incredible depth and coverage of snow over the eastern highlands. After checking the forecast Wednesday looked like the day. Sunshine, no wind and a fresh dusting of snow. The shop was closed up and ski making put on hold for a day for some all important testing of the Ord ski. My first port of call was the Cabin Ski Hire at bridge of cally. Only a 35 minute drive from my bothy. There I met up with Dad and also dropped in to say hi to Chris and Holly who run the uber cool hire shop. I hired a second pair of skis to demo for something to try in the afternoon. I chose the K2 Pinnacle 105 as it looked somewhat like my sneachda but with much more nose and tail rocker.

As we approached the Spittal of Glenshee the snowline was beautifully defined and the tops looked like they had been covered in cake icing. In contrast to previous years the snow seems to have landed instead of landing and being blown away straight away! Even better when we arrived there was hardly anyone in the car park which didn’t change much all day.

First run Dad and I headed to sunnyside to warm up on piste. The light was flat and the snow was hard and quite grippy. It was important to see how the Ord could handle this kind of hard stuff. For a 120 waisted ski it did a great job and it was no much effort at all to guide it across the piste.

Next was the off piste test. There was an untracked strip of snow between sunnyside poma 1 and 2 that had caught the snow well. The Ords flew into action and showed what they are really capable of when the hammer is put down. The soft tail and great underfoot support allowed for smooth landings and quick powerful turns in the deeper stuff. The combination of the carbon and flax fibre with the super light core made this ski a joy to pilot. It’s a big ski but it feels like air on your feet.

Later in the day the Butcharts access poma opened revealing some splended terrain on Carn Aosda. This was the best snow of the day punctuated by a bit of wind crust. The Ord flew over it all without making me expend any energy. A true laid back ski you can go lightspeed on all the time.

I bumped into my old friend Hamish who was touring. We decided to hike up to the summit of Carn Aosda and ski down the south facing slope. The last time I had done this descent was oddly enough with Hamish four year earlier. The snow didn't disappoint and we both flew down with streams of scottish powder flying out of the backs of our skis. The snow was great all the way down to the road. I'll remember that one. The Ord’s were absolutely perfect on this steep deep terrain. Exactly what I had hoped for!

Finally I went up for a wee blast on the K2 Pinnacles. First on piste and then off. They were pretty good on piste with nice stability but the low long nose did flap a little. However once I took them off piste into the mixed snow they really excelled. They were happy being ridden at full speed and loved to be in the air or making quick turns with their agile camber. Their stiffer tail gave plenty of support at high speed. I give them 7.0 for piste and 8.5 off piste.