Top Row (l to r): Kaylin Richardson, Edie Thys Morgan, Megan Dingman

Middle Row: Jennifer Simpson Weier, Robyn Barnes, Cara Williams

Bottom Row: Madeline Dunn, Kim Beekman, Pauline Astruc

WOMEN’S SKI TEST:
A-TEAM STEPS UP

My ski season abruptly ended on March 13, 2020 and with it any hope of business as usual. When the hammer fell, my scheduled women’s test session was still two weeks from launching. How could I credibly report on the current crop of women’s skis—including some important new models—without any data to support my assessments?

I turned to the one cadre of skiers who had already skied this year’s top models: the women who serve as test pilots for the major brands’ product development teams. Every one of our 20/21 women’s ski reviews is authored by a veteran evaluator, some with over 20 years experience. Naturally, their reviews reflect their personal experiences and are therefore biased in favor of the brand and model under review. Whatever the shortcomings of an explicitly prejudiced point of view are more than compensated for by personal insights into the process of creating these models.

–Jackson Hogen