All kinds of plans for this week came and went, at one stage I was going to the Oberland to climb the Finsteraarhorn but the weather up in the Oberland was awful and it’s a pretty awful place to get caught in bad weather. In the end as I was going to start a ski tour into the Silvretta from Ischgl I decided to go there a couple of days early and have a look at the Ischgl area in Austria.

It’s been quite some time since I skied in Austria, I was reckoning something like five years probably.

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Name : Black Diamond Voodoo

Manufacturer Web site : http://www.skibd.com/gear.php

First Use : December 2007

Black Diamond have two main ski ranges right now, the Efficient and Power range. The Power range contains skis like the Havoc, Kilowatt or Zealot which are powerful freeride skis, and the Efficient series which are basically lighter more orientated to longer touring and bigger ascents but aiming to keep downhill performance high. Looking at the range I was initially drawn to the Havoc or the Kilowatt but after some thought went for the Voodoo from the Efficient series.

The Voodoo uses a lightweight version of the Dual Torsion Box used by the Havoc (and others), this keeps the same longitudinal stiffness but has a more relaxed torsional stiffness. Effectively you’ve got a Havoc but with a few less layers in it, this saves about 200g at the 185cm length. What really grabbed my attention with the whole Black Diamond range was that they’re designed from the bottom up to be strong, light and high performance, I caught a really interesting interview with Thomas Laakso who does ski design work for Black Diamond, that interview can be watched online at TelemarkTips.com.

I spent a long time thinking about what bindings to put on these skis, I’d recently (Spring 2007) got some Dynafit bindings on some ultralight skis along with some Dynafit compatible boots in the Garmont Megarides. I really couldn’t convince myself that the slightly soft Megaride would drive the ski effectively, I’d been riding my Stormriders with Garmont Endorphins and thought I might need to use the Endorphin on the Voodoos as well. That drove me to mounting some Fritschi Freerides on the Voodoos, the logic being that I could use either the Megaride or Endorphin but the downside being the weight penalty of that heavier binding.

What I’ve discovered is that Megarides work just fine with the Voodoos, I think this is down to having a consistent flex all through the system. I took a quick test of my Endorphins on the Voodoos and found it a fairly poor combination at least for me. Obviously I’m now left wondering if I ought to have just mounted some Dynafits but that’s hindsight I guess!

Having cleared the hurdle of what bindings to use and received the skis (from the excellent Telemark-Pyrenees) the next thing to worry about was how good they’d be uphill, they’re significantly wider than any skis I’ve toured with before so I was concerned. It turns out that they’re really very good indeed, in fact the better flotation from the wider ski that’s desirable for downhill is actually quite useful on the ascent, compared to my ultra light Stormrider PIT lights I’m not crashing through the snow when breaking trail and it’s actually a lot less effort on some kinds of snow. I’m skiing them at 185cm which is fairly long for a pure touring ski and there’s a slight difficulty kick turning them although my own technique is partly to blame probably.

I have to say it’s taken me a little time to get used the ski, the length and the width differing from my previous skis and being unfamiliar. We’ve had a variety of conditions this season, from crust and hard-pack to fantastic powder days and now I’m familar with the Voodoo I’m pretty comfortable on most surface I think. So far I’ve not skied them much on piste and certainly not too much in bumps or anything like that so I’m not sure how they behave there. I’ve a couple (at least, so far) of multi-day tours planned in the spring and I’m not hesitating to take the Voodoos along, before Xmas I’d assumed that I’d use my ultra light Stormrider PIT lights but downhill performance of the Voodoos is so good it’s worth the weight penaltly.

Downhill I’m finding the Voodoos amazingly good, stable and secure at much higher speeds than I expected on all kinds of snow including the piste, okay they’re a bit plankey on plain ice sometimes and rattle around a bit but it’s not a big deal. The compromises I expected with a lighter ski having that slightly softer flex just aren’t there.

come on Black Diamond, make an effort ….

I’ve got a load of other Black Diamond kit, gloves, a rucksack, ice axes, ice screws, an avalung etc and I’m a big fan, they’ve just released some ski touring boots, so far only “Power” series, and when I need some more boots I’ll look at what they have. But …….. they need to get a better range of stockists and test centres up and running, I know there’s a place at La Grave but I’m not about to travel all the way down there to test some skis, I live in one of the best freeride ski areas in Switzerland, if not the best, and you can’t buy or test Black Diamond skis. I even emailed a couple of dealers in Zermatt and didn’t get anywhere. The range is actually almost too big, it’s really hard to choose without a proper test facility, my eye went between the Stigma, Voodoo, Kilowatt and Havoc and I’d have liked to try the Verdict. I often see people looking at my skis and people come up and ask me how they are so there’s an interest in the Black Diamond range but I have yet to see another pair of Voodoos around here, in fact I’ve seen just one other pair of Black Diamond skis in the Anniviers all season. It looks to me if you’re going to sell a ski range you need to create a buzz around, which they’ve done, then make sure you’ve got the channels in place to satisfy demand which so far look inadequate. They should open a test centre here, I’ll keep the kit in my workshop and I’ll promise to look after it really well!

Buy now from Backcountry.com …

Black Diamond Voodoo SkiThe Black Diamond Voodoo Ski’s lightweight construction, mellow flex, and fat dimensions help save energy on long tours, while the fat dimensions provide some serious fun when you finally find that perfect powder stash.

 

After the snow earlier in the week and some poor visibility over the last few days this was the great chance to get a powder run down to the Moiry barrage. I’d expected to meet Mike on the first lift but I think he must have snuck onto one running before 0830 so I met him at the top around 0900 and we headed straight for the Sorebois so by 0930 we were dropping into the line and getting first tracks. A couple more people caught us up after I caught a rock and released a ski but we passed them again we had the lower section to ourselves making first tracks and crossing the barrage.


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I’ve not been taking too many photographs recently but conditions have been pretty good. At the end of last week, some days after the last snow, we were still finding good snow pretty much all over the mountain. There was a fair amount of snow on Monday which gave some great conditions on Tuesday skiing in Zinal and over to Grimentz.

It’s high season and there’s a few people around of course, I skied yesterday with Mike H. and we stayed mostly off-piste avoiding the crowds, it’s not busy by the standards of larger ski stations but the pistes always look dangerous, so many of the holiday makers seem determined to ski into each other that it’s probably best to just stay out the way a little.

We had a little snow overnight (Monday night) and now it’s snowing again fairly heavily, this may put the brakes on some bigger lines and touring for the rest of the week until the snow pack stabilises a little.