Who doesn't remember this experience: with neon-colored action paint on my face, I see a huge hill of snow in front of me. To my right is another hill and to my left a whole bunch of these hills. It's the early 90s somewhere in the Pitztal at the end of a great day's skiing and I'm sinking into a sea of head-high mounds of snow. Which way should I go, right past left past right, or just over it - damn, these hills are just too big. My father later explained to me that this run was a mogul slope and that it was the supreme discipline of skiing.
I always have fond memories of my first mogul slope and still get a huge thrill when I see beautiful moguls in the ski area. In the meantime, the moguls no longer feel as big as they did when I was just under a meter tall. But the challenge and excitement is still the same today.
Unfortunately, moguls are a dying breed these days. The age of carving skis with their demand for a perfectly flattened slope at all times could be one reason for this. But the ski industry may also have a small part to play. Because without the right material underfoot, the pleasure between the bumps is rather modest. The current trend is towards ever wider skis - understandable and right for reasons we know. Nothing beats a great day's skiing with friends in the powder. But what do we do between the sometimes sparse powder days? These days, we have plenty of options - maybe one or two of us will change sports equipment and test our skills on monoskis, snowboards, squal or snowbikes. Even BigFoots have been spotted this winter. Whatever the case, the main thing is that fun in the snow is guaranteed.
After another great evening with HotDog..The Movie (those of us in the know know how such an evening ends), we decided to turn the summit slope on our local mountain into a mogul slope last winter. Unfortunately, the pleasure was rather short-lived, as the highly motivated Pistenbully drivers did their job too well the following weekend in my opinion and made the work of many motivated "bucklers" disappear overnight.
This year, I wanted to take a further step in my mogul career and strap the appropriate equipment under my feet, following the motto "compensate for a lack of skiing technique with better equipment".
It would have been easier to hone my skiing technique, as mogul skis are not available from your trusted dealer or any other dealer. A few searches on the internet were also unsatisfactory. Only a tip from a good friend was successful and so nothing stood in the way of my investment for the season. It's hard to believe, but the last coins in my wallet were enough for a magnificent specimen of a ski: the Völkl Dragon Slayer in 170 cm length. Not exactly competition length, but perfectly adequate for my beginner exercises. The year of manufacture 05/06 also sounds promising. So the ski should have already seen a bump or two in its short ski life.
But things turned out differently than expected. After opening the long-awaited package, I had an unbored ski in my hand. A ski almost straight from the press. Even the Völkl quality control stickers were still on it. Less than a day later, the binding was already mounted on my narrowest ski. Only the stoppers, which were still too wide, were not ideal. So I went in search of narrow ski stoppers. Not easy to find something suitable with a ski width of 66 mm. The other dimensions of 94 mm and 80 mm are rare these days, but ideal dimensions for this type of ski. Other technical details such as Sensor Woodcore and Power Construction were high-end at the time and were therefore better printed directly on the topsheet. Not that you forget what steep parts you are skiing under your feet. The name of the ski also heightens my anticipation: Dragon Slayer. Whatever is behind the name - you definitely don't need to be afraid of dragons.
The same goes for the moguls. The ski smoothly seeks the fastest line from mogul to mogul with incredible agility. This was an unusual feeling on the first run, but after runs 2 and 3 we became friends and the grin on my face grew bigger and bigger with every turn. After 3 descents, I had completed more changes of direction (I don't want to call them turns yet) than I usually do in a whole week and it was time for the ultimate turn, the return turn. This would actually be worth its own report.
The lightness of the ski also proved its worth here.
I strongly advise anyone who is now interested in this rare specimen to buy it if they have the opportunity. For everyone else, I recommend leaving the wide ski in the cellar for a day and unpacking the good old French fries. At the latest in the middle of the moguls, the grin is huge.
Here's to a great mogul season and enjoy the winter.
