Let It Snow

Valley showers mean mountain powder—is your gear ready to ‘rocker?’

Winter storms make us want to kick back, sip Irish Coffee and warm our toes ’round a roaring fire. Inside a ski lodge, that is, spinning tall tales about our mountain mastery. So we stopped obsessively checking online snow reports just long enough to ask the pros at Ski Pro what’s burning up the slopes this year. Turns out it’s all about the ‘rocker.’

Unlike traditional skis and snowboards, which rise up in the middle, rocker-style equipment is concave or bent down in the middle. This seemingly minor innovation has shaken the ski/boarding community to its frozen foundation. Also known as reverse-camber, these new skis and snowboards allow weekend warriors to effortlessly carve up the thickest ‘Champagne powder’ like an X-Games superstar. Created by the late, great extreme skier, Shane McConkey—who unveiled the awesomely-named Volant Spatula in 2001—rocker skis and boards are now offered by every top manufacturer worldwide.

Gear up: Ski Pro, three locations Valley-wide