We have an "I love lamp" kind of affection for the new Scott Superguide Freetour alpine touring ski. Let’s start with some facts. Lightweight, fat (anything over 105cm under waist), alpine touring skis excel in the backcountry but typically flop and flail on rock-hard snow. So we know from experience that when ski manufacturers claim they have a light, fat alpine touring ski that can confidently ski firm snow with the best of them, it starts to sound like an Anchorman quote to us - “They’ve done studies, you know. 60% of the time, it works every time”...“That does not make sense.” No Mr. Burgundy it does not make sense, and neither does how well the new Scott Superguide Freetour skis in deep powder and excels on teeth rattling bulletproof snow.
Made with a new duel solid wood (Paulownia/Beech) core adorned with strategically placed torsionally rigid Carbon/Aramid fibers along the full length of the ski, the sleek back graphite top sheet looks like it was made with “bits of real panther, so you know it’s good”. The Swiss engineers at Scott have designed a new 3Dimension Touring Sidecut that has a wider radius on the shovel, a long radius underfoot and a shorter radius on the tail. This profile allows the Superguide to straight-line it at speed, arc big mountain turns, and then rotate quickly when it gets tight. The Superguide Freetour has ample tip rocker to float through deep powder and crud in the backcountry, but with a shape that is truly fast and stable on steep firm snow when things escalate quickly.
True to Scott’s nature, this ski is rock solid, damp and stable at speed, with the 185cm ski weighing a “that does not make sense” 1610 grams. This is one of the very few lightweight 105cm waisted backcountry skis that we would ever consider pointing into a 50 degree concrete-hard slope with. “Stay classy” and pick up the new Scott Freeride!