By Stephen Regenold Balancing downhill power and performance with acceptable cross-country capability has long been a battle for backcountry-skiing connoisseurs. You need speed on the flats and control when youre going down, a free heel to stride, and power to turn and stop where the mountains tip steep.All these requirements do not add up replica Cartier La Dona watches to any whole. Despite decadesof tweaking and the development of hundreds of products, a singlesystem for all snowy terrain has never come to light. Karhu, a brand created in Finland that came to North America in the1970s, offers a line of skis that tread the middle ground better thanmost.
The companys XCD line, unveiled 30 years ago, were initiallytouted as a marriage of downhill and cross-country qualities -- metaledges, Nordic builds, and a sidecut and camber capable of touring aswell as turning on the slopes.A new entrant in the XCD line, I recently tested Karhus 10thMountain ski, which, at about three pounds per ski, is replica cartier watches light enoughfor cross-country skiing and uphill plodding. But the $350 skis, whichhave full metal edges and a slalom-friendly sidecut, slice quick turnson slopes up to 45 degrees.My test paired the 10th Mountain ski with the companys lace-up XCDTraverse boot and Voile 3-Pin Cable Telemark bindings. On the snow,the lightweight setup seemed skewed at first toward touring, with acamber that popped the midsection up and a fish-scale grip patternunderfoot for pushing off in lieu of kick wax.
In the backcountry, the Karhu () configurationlets you leave climbing skins behind, with the etched fish scalesgripping snow so you can push off and glide. But going uphill is notalways easy in these skis. I had to cut wide switchbacks on a30-degree slope, traversing back and forth across the face, to keepthe scales gripping and in cartier Allongee Ceinture watches contact as I moved. Any steeper and theydslip backwards with pressure during a stride. Another issue: My test skis, which are 185cm long and 68mm wide inthe middle, did not support my weight in powder snow. On a skistraight through the woods, each stride sunk into the fluffy snowseveral inches, and the motion felt more like snowshoeing than skiing.
