I've now had the opportunity to ski the 170 Firnis on three different days. Once in a foot of fresh snow and twice on groomed natural snow.

Before getting into how the Edelwiser performs, I'd like to give them a bit of respect for their custom graphic program. I've mentioned in other reviews that I don't much care for the way most skis look these days. In fact, I generally paint my skis once I decide to keep them. The ability to really personalize these skis graphics is a very strong selling point and something I'd love to see other brands start doing as well. Most of us aren't sponsored, yet we pay comapnies a significant amount of money to ride around on big old advertisements for their product. I'd rather let the skis' performance speak for itself and let the graphics be interesting in their own right. Way to go on making custom graphics easy Edelwiser!

As I mentioned above, I had one nice powder day and two groomed natural days on the Edelwiser 170. In general this ski has dimensions that make it seem like a good all around ski, perhaps a bit narrower underfoot than my own standby but close enough that I didn't expect it to surprise me. It also feels like a real ski, by which I mean that it feels stiff, solid and damp. On paper and in hand the Edelwiser gave every impression of providing a solid predictable skiing experience and on the snow they didn't dissapoint.

My first day out on the 170 Firnis was on packed, groomed, natural snow. The ski held an edge very well right up to 9/10ths speed, absorbed, small bumps with ease and was composed through all manner of snow debris. Dialing up the speed, lean angle or rotational torque tightened up the turn radius just as you would expect from this predictable handling ski. Leaning in hard didn't upset the ski and it definitely  handled more on the damp end of the spectrum than the lively end of the specturm; blasting through chunks, cutting across exposed hardpack or baring down hard through high speed turns were no problem at all. Skiing the 170 Firnis that first day was a real blast, as I dug medium radius, high speed trenches down some of my favorite slopes they quickly felt like an old friend and it was easy to see my turns plotted out in front of me, they were that predictable.

My second day out was in 12-16 inches of, relatively light for the East Coast, fresh snow. Here the Firnis floated about how you might expect for a these-days-narrower waisted ski; they sat a bit lower in it than many of the powder skis my pals had out but they plowed right through with all the same predictability and confidence they had already exhibted on groomers. Though still damp, the Fernis had just enough pop for my to make porpoise style turns in lower angle powder and definitely had enough tip width to make turn initiation a breeze.

One more groomed natural day on the Fernis really put this ski in perspective for me. This ski is a solid performing all around ski, great for carving the whole mountain up on the groomers and stiull perfectly competent in a bit of fresh snow. This is a meatily put together carving ski, ideal for relatively high momentum skiers looking to dig trenches run after run. Don't get me wrong, these skis will smear turns and you can ski them slow or skid them around but what they really want to do is turn up the speed and carve.

All this solid Austrian alpine performance coupled with the ability to lay your own graphics down will probably make a whole bunch of skiers happy.