Replying to Salomon Depart- brief review, AMA

Borrowed some Salomon Departs for a few runs at Lake Louise. Here are a few observations:

The ski is super fun. The shape really does facilitate unconventional lines in the park and playfulness on the rest of the mountain.
They felt light and responsive everywhere and are a perfect platform to get funky if that’s your thing. They did feel fairly short for me at 180 cm.

- Very short turn radius makes the ski quite nimble. Short and medium radius carved turns were a joy. For a ski 106 under foot they were fairly quick edge to edge. While versatile, the skis don’t want to charge and start to feel a bit floppy at higher speeds on the very firm groomed runs I skied.

-Flex is reasonably stiff under foot, considerably softer towards the ends of the ski. The rocker combined with the flex pattern makes these butter like a dream. The ones I skied were mounted fairly far back. Nose butters were money- it felt like there was a platform supporting me when I got a certain point pressing the noses. I had to modulate pressure on the tails a little more, having looped out a few times from pressing hard on the tails.

-rails were really fun. The ski provides a great platform while still being quick on the metal. Hitting larger jumps was a bit scary, I had one very spooky tail heavy landing. I think they would feel more fun on jumps once I got more used to them, I had been on a longer, stiffer, narrower ski the previous run and I usually don’t have access to large jumps.

I wouldn’t want the depart to be my only ski but will definitely buy a pair of these for days when I want to be more funky if I can find a good price on them.

For reference I’m 6’1”, 210 lbs and skied the 180.

**This thread was edited on Apr 22nd 2024 at 1:44:07am

**This thread was edited on Apr 22nd 2024 at 1:45:19am