Good Morning America,

last weekend I had the possibility to ride my new Scott Punisher 182 on the Kitzsteinhorn/Salzburg/Austria. Conditions were possibly not ideal to ski a more freeride orientated Ski but good enough for some first comments. Sunny weather and quite good slope condition, hard with some fresh powder on. Off piste some 10cm of fresh snow.

The Punisher has got the dimensions of 182/R16/128-89-115 and is a woodcore/fibre-laminated sandwich construction. I think the ski is produced with Fischer in Austria. I have a Rossi Axial2 SPS mounted and centered at the marked point.

As I am used to ski my Edelwiser carving rockets the Edelwiser line is my reference. I got the ski especially for off-piste backcountry skiing at any conditions but especially powder. Nethertheless I was searching for a ski also capeable for carving and mixed conditions. Therefore a sort of compromise with a wideness of 89mm.

The Punisher is said to be similar to the Scott Mission except it is a twintip construction. On slope the ski showed great stability and grip in medium and wider carving turns with a lot of punch and power within the radius of 16m. Shorter carved turnes do not work so easy compared to other ski. I did not have the impression that the Scott was too soft in the tips therefore shortening the radius works but with quite a lot of input. The edge grip was good on groomed ground but I have driven skies with better ice grip. So on slope a sort of carving bomber if conditions are not too hard. Not as responsive as pure carving skis like Edelwiser.

Off the piste the Punisher performed well in harder mougles and old snow. Very much easy to handle and easy to turn feeling shorter than 182cm I assume due to the twin construction. Whatever there is in front of the ski you can just let it run through. A lot of stability and confidence provided.

Generally speaking the Punisher is fantastic allmountain/backcountry ski for more or less all condition except pure carving. Definitly it is not a park ski. Too heavy and stable maybe also due to the heavy SPS Rossis. I personally would recommend the ski for experianced skies only because if its stability and punch.

Snow is coming up in the next days so I will hopefully have the possibility to ski the Punisher in deeper powder conditions. Review to follow up.

Cheers

Christoph

Good morning,

last weekend I had the possibilitiy to ski the Punisher in deeper snow condition. Saturday to Sunday Heiligenblut/Carinthia/Austria got some 50cm and Sunday night some additional 100cm. Consequence: The mayor of the small village advised via radio (!) that kids should stay at home due to avalange danger!

On piste there were some 30cm on packed snow and off piste 60-100cm deep snow. Due to altitude 1.300-2.600m (Fleiss not opened yet due to snow) the snow was powder to medium heavy. First impression: I should have taken the P4 for powder skiing but: I have not seen so much snow for the last years coming down at once....

In pure off piste condition I would say the Punisher is good enough but maybe not really fat enough but its good and easy to ski and doesn´t need a lot of powder. On piste (plus some 30cm of powder on) the Punisher works perfect. Set the ski whereever and however you want at any speed. It will just carve through any conditions. Gives a lot of confidence. Again you can ski the Punisher powderful and you can even carve the ski in difficult conditions.

For pure deep powder conditions I would look at the P4 but there are not so many powder days in the "Hohe Tauern" region. More likely there are some 10-30cm fresh snow or old deep snow and for exactly those conditions I got the Scott.

Therefore exactly what I was looking for: easy, powerful and still a good choice for powder.

Cheeers

Christoph