Me: 49 yrs, 190lbs. 6'3"
Longtime skier, but not super aggressive. Like to go kind of fast when conditions are appropriate. I don't jib, air anything big or ride in the park.
I skied 43 days last season.
Conditions at Mt. Baker, WA: Cold (upper teens prolly) temps, packed powder on-piste, hacked powder inbounds off-piste. The Districts saw a dozen powder turns after a short hike and some groomer cruising.
Lib Tech NAS 187 Parillo - they look like this
and are the ones that are 98-100 underfoot depending upon whether you measure at a Magne-traction bump or not. Mounted with Axial 2 Ti 120's 5mm aft of the 'dimple' .
First turns of the season were made on these skis. I was delighted. This ski inspired confidence. They felt extremely stable going at a good clip even with the significant amount of sidecut and were much easier to get up on edge than I would have imagined a 100mm-waisted ski to be. Once on edge the grip was tremendous (note: just now started snowing in Seattle!) and it almost felt like a race ski. I would call it medium-stiff to stiff flex both tip and tail. Very nimble, responsive, easy to turn and a ton of fun.
The recommended mounting point exposed a slightly longer tail than I would have eyeballed had I been left on my own, and when I found myself heading into the back seat for some reason the rigidity of the tail popped me right back to where I should be. Even though they appear to be a forward-ish mount, it didn't feel like it. I found that I was not fighting anything about this ski and felt well centered and balanced the whole time. I really wanted to let them run and felt no tentativeness about doing so. In the hacked powder they blasted through and over anything they came into contact with no annoying tip-deflection and felt as though they'd float nicely in the powder. I acquired this ski because I thought it might be a good step up from the Scott Mission Santiago 178's (always kind of regretted not buying that ski in a longer length when I picked them up) that have been my daily driver for the last couple of seasons. I think it was a good choice. I suspect the NAS's will get a lot of resort use this season, and should be great in deeper snow as well.