Nature Burger

Dynafits hold you in well and also pop you out fast! There is not much give in the pin-system that connects the boot to the ski and they also lack the required damping and elasticity that allow you to ski at or near the true din setting you need.

Made for: backcountry skiing.
The good: light-weight and simplicity.

Hard-landings, running hard-crud, etc, can and will lead to premature ejection from most tech-system bindings - it's not a secret and most users will acknowledge that.

They can also break from time-to-time and guides often pack spare toe-pieces in their packs as a precaution in case they fail for some reason on a long trip.

My own experience? I love Dynafits for what they are intended for. A while ago, I crashed (not too hard) at a resort on hard-pack with my tech bindings and one of the heel piece components busted (it's not all metal even if it's silver colored) AND they also ripped a gash in the toe-piece connector on my boots so that I needed new touring boots -- lesson learned -- !

You wanna huck cliffs? Not a very good idea with these babies. Forget cliffs unless you really are a pro or don't mind ruining your touring gear. Huck small kickers - yes.

Buy another pair of skis with a real step-in binding. It is 110% worth the piece of mind and better release characteristics to be on a good setup for resort use.

Lots of great bindings here on www.backcountry.com that flex well (Look Pivot, Marker Jester and many others) and would be way more dependable for resort use.

If you only got one ski for resort and backcountry, then ask your shop to install inserts for swapping bindings.

I would not recommend this as an East coast ski.

It handles soft snow (not packed powder) and powder quite well. However, this ski was not made for the typical East coast condition: hard-packed or groomed man-made snow.

In the later case, this ski is quite skittish and suffers in overall performance versus narrower and more traditionally cambered skis.

The advert says it is a ski that handles groomers. 'Handles' being the operative word. They should really say it 'survives' hard packed conditions.

If you ask a ski shop in the East for a good quiver-of-one East coast ski, I'm sure that this baby won't be on the list.

Who wrote the ad-copy? I can't believe they said this: "yet allows for phenomenal edge-to-edge contact on the hard pack." ... WRONG. It merely 'survives' in that condition.

"Carbon-reinforced, full wood core provides excellent stability and creates a very lively ski."

It is stable, albeit in soft snow only. Moreso, it is a damp forgiving ski.

It is a smooth-flexing soft turning ski that handles powder and churned up fresh snow quite well.

In other words, get another ski, like a Rossignol Experience 88 (98 would serve as a dual East-West quiver of one ski) or a Mantra (OK for East, better for West), or the Line Prophet 90. They would all be better choices.

get 179. For a 170lb dude, 5' 9", the 179 will be the perfect length. If you like me, 215 lb, 6' then get the longer ones.

With 179 you get the best tree's performance, all the stability you need at high speed and ... it also will fit in your ski rack better.

It packs to roughly a litre. I'm sure you can squish it quite a lot if you use a compression sack.