Love the video. It really amazes me that these guys were going after it so long ago on the gear they had at the time. They were definitely "tough SoBs".
"Tuning" your powder ski selection to the mountain and the snow type is something that I've been playing with over the past few seasons. I bought a big fat wide powder ski after I got tired of being left in the dust by friends on wider skis when we were skiing Vail. Vail is mostly low angle slopes and on a deep day you need a ski that has more float to keep you moving. However, I hate my widest skis at Loveland because they plane up so easily that I don't get to ski "in the snow" nearly as much. So I bought narrower powder skis that still have the same shape and rocker profile, but should let me stay down in the snow more even at speed.
I was watching an old ski movie this weekend from 1994 (P-tex, Lies, and Duct tape) and was thinking how different that skiing would have looked if they had today's gear. There were many points where the skiers were really struggling with skiing deep snow on the skinny skis. You NEVER see that any longer in the current movies over the past 5 years. It seems that the new fatter skis designs have tamed the mountain to the point of making it almost too easy. Yeah, today's pros are now pushing the envelope even further, but they wouldn't be able to do that if it weren't for the advances in the gear. So much for the idea that you "can't buy a turn".
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