G3

ZenOxide Carbon 105 Ski

If you assumed ZenOxide is something the kids are doing now that nitrous is played out, well, you're half right. It's a hell of a time, and everyone wants to be on it, but it's not what you think. Nope, the ZenOxide Carbon 105 is G3's ultralight touring/powder ski, back unchanged for its second year after blowing away the fast-and-light big-mountain community on the first go-round.

Designed to bridge the gap between ultralight mountaineering and big-mountain powder skis, the ZenOxide weights under three pounds per ski, making it the lightest 105mm-waisted ski in the world. It's not some rando noodle, though, as it comes with a full carbon-fiber cap and two triaxial carbon-fiber laminates that give it the torsional rigidity and fore-aft stiffness to charge and the lightness to make short work of the skin track, so you can tack on pow lap after pow lap without beating up your legs before you get to the top. All the carbon is wrapped around a paulownia and poplar wood core that gives the ZenOxide a smooth flex and lively feel when you're surfing through powder, outfitted with a Titanal mounting plate for strong and reliable binding installation, and topped off with a shiny nylon topsheet that resists UV rays to keep your skis from slowly fading in the sun. 

The ZenOxide's a powder ski, but the backcountry serves up plenty of variable conditions when you're least expecting them, so G3 gave it a solid amount of traditional camber underfoot to increase power and hold when you need to lay down a solid edge. The early-rise tip gives the ability to float through powder and stay nimble in tight spots, while the ski's relatively long running surface and generous turning radius keeps you stable as a table when you're opening it up down big faces and pointing it out the bottom of tight chutes. It's also outfitted with burly steel edges and a fast, tough P-Tex 2000 Electra base to keep you moving fast and holding tight edges in everything from deep snow to unexpected windslab to springtime corn. Small wonder, than that the ZenOxide won a whole mess of awards and impressed ski mountaineers and backcountry pow-slayers alike.