Thin sticks in the pow?

For every extra cm of width you are add, you add the length of your ski in cm squared to the surface area.
171cm ski.. adding 1cm to the width adds 171cmsquared to the area. Adding width makes a big difference to float.

i ride some armada ar6s (85 cm at waist) and i do perfectly fine. i was jumping cliffs and pillows with friends in knee to thigh high powder. as long as you keep your speed up, you should be fine.

depends how long and where the skis are mounted. if they are mounted center, a ski that narrow will absolutely blow in powder. if its mounted further back, it will be much better. also, longer skis will work better. so yea. thats about my advice. if your going someplace and you get hammered, just rent some fatties for a day or two.

The stiffness of the ski or the length usually makes more of a difference than the waist width.  I've ridden TNK's in a foot (pow skis were out of action at the time) and they were so stiff that I was actually able to shred them fairly hard.  I was doing way more work than normal, but it happened.  On the other hand, my old AR5s are pretty soft by now and they get knocked around like a $3 hooker in the pow.