REVIEW: Voile's Newest Ski Completes Telemark's Modern Touring Paradigm

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Surveying the current free-heel gear landscape,one in quiet if protracted renaissance, it’s clear this is not for your father’s telemark scene. Borne on a bevy of homebrewed innovations, and after a slow march lasting decades, the lunging turn’s equipment has moved away from its previous iteration–softer flexing but heavy and behind the touring-times–and inched ever toward the AT world in performance and weight parity. 

Binding innovations long known only in the DIY world have finally been brought to market, including telemark options that are on par with AT counterparts in touring ability and skiing prowess. Throw in the modern, rigid, and perhaps paradigm shifting new telemark boots from Scarpa (2024’s TX Pro and this season’s TX Comp) and we have arrived at a new age in telemark gear. And Voile’s ACE series of skis–in particular the mid-fat Vector ACE–is perhaps its own aisle-crossing, hard-skiing exemplar of this new free-heel order.

Voile Vector ACE Specs

• Size Skied: 171cm
• Lengths Available: 171cm, 177cm, 184cm
• Sidecuts:
  127mm – 94mm – 111mm (@171cm)

  130mm – 96mm – 114mm (@177cm)

  133mm – 98mm – 116mm (@184cm)

• Radii: 18.5m, 19.5m, 20m, respectively
• Profile: Early rise tip, standard camber underfoot, flat, tapered tail
• Weight: 1400g @171cm

Shape, Flex, and Construction

Voile’s ACE series, first released in 2023 with the wider Charger ACE, employs a novel construction that aims to achieve a light-weight touring platform that skis like a classically designed ski. To accomplish this, the series incorporates a hybrid sidewall design using Voile’s typical sandwich construction near the topsheet and a standard sidewall nearer the edge, adding an aggressive edging pop to a typically lighter construction, not unlike the Blizzard Zero G’s partial sidewall build. 

Beyond that, the ACE series pairs a paulownia wood core with a stronger mounting zone using layers of maple, chop strand, and epoxy, that notably can take a telemark binding, something not always feasible in an ultralight touring ski. And all ACE models borrow the shape and profile of their name mates (many of Voile’s skis now come in three different builds; their lighter-weight, paulownia-only core “Hyper” variety, their standard construction using poplar cores, and now the ACE line).

But while the Vector ACE and the rest of the ACE series are not telemark-specific skis (and would undoubtedly be a great choice for fixed-heel skiing), from a free-heel perspective, the model in many ways feels like a de facto telemark model. Tele legend Westen Deutschlander hosts Voile’s product videos for the ACE line, and while the only free-heel specific note he makes of the Vector ACE is that the ski can indeed take a telemark mount, the footage of him skiing the model is all lunging turns.

Long a cornerstone of the telemark world with their definitive free-heel bindings, Voile’s ski offerings have also been a go-to for the tele crowd for the better part of two and a half generations. But Voile followed the ultralight zeitgeist as touring skis began incorporating balsa-esque woods that were uberlight for the ascent, but couldn’t be depended on to withstand the forces a telemark binding could inflict on a ski. Voile’s Hyper series–themselves employing a paulownia wood core, and released beginning in 2018–were designed strictly for AT use. Since then, Voile has purposefully come to market with touring-oriented skis that can be paired with a telemark binding, such as the ACE series and its line-mate predecessor in the Endeavor.

But where the Endeavor is a more traditionally constructed ski with a poplar core and narrower underfoot width, the Vector ACE brings to the fold a big objective backcountry model for the telemark crowd that is all new age in design and application. And it’s a strong skiing model.

On-Snow Performance

Paired with InWild’s new and likely little-known SIMPLL TTS binding, a beta-version tech toe model with perhaps modern telemark’s most free-flexing skiing sensation, the Vector ACE tours as one would expect: with ease. The ski’s low swing weight, light feel, and mid-fat width grants a natural touring ability that was unremarkable at first; on initial tours I was so focused on what the binding was doing (an item I’ll be reviewing in a few weeks) that the ski faded into the background, and in a good way. It was ski touring in the simple fashion that you would expect and want.  

The 171cm length I skied has a list weight of 2816g per pair. Comparable models, like Atomic’s Backland 95 (2650g at the 169cm length) and the aforementioned Zero G 95 from Blizzard (2460g at 171cm) are notably lighter than the Vector ACE, but it’s intentional telemark-compatible design gives some ease of mind for free-heelers skiing a paulownia core ski. Regardless, the ski’s weight is spot-on for touring. And the design and its added heft undoubtedly serves a telemark turn–ever better on a damper ski–well.

Similar to many other models from the brand, the Vector ACE sets a solid turn with quick ski-to-ski initiation, bringing it on the uphill as well as the down. The model also holds an edge well on firm snow in a telemark turn, inspiring confidence on frozen late-season resort tours. Like most any paulownia/carbon ski, I presumed the Vector ACE would have a propensity to get tossed around a little in junky snow, but the 96mm width underfoot alleviates that somewhat. And while the model skis great in good conditions, it also plowed through frozen slush and firm piste with ease.

Paired with the InWild SIMPLL binding, the Vector ACE skis with prowess while still granting enough flex and feel for a smooth telemark sensation. It is not your classically damp telemark ski, something that Voile’s heavier V6 or skinner and poplar-cored Endeavor would more align with. But as a light touring ski with a little width, the Vector ACE is a melder of worlds, something perhaps skiing–and especially telemark–may occasionally focus too strongly on, where deep strength in any one attribute is eschewed for versatility. Still, the Vector ACE does it all well. 

Taking the Vector ACE out for a few laps at Steamboat. Photo credit Tiedz.

Each of the ACE models run $995 retail, a price point on the slightly more expensive side of the paulownia/carbon ski cost continuum. Still, the skis are high quality, made in Utah, and continue the brand’s streak of innovation, especially in regards to telemark skiing.

What type of skier is the Voile Vector ACE best for?

Where AT skiers are now often pairing lighter tech bindings with slightly beefier skis to make for more skiable big-objective setups–a blend of freeride and skimo ethea known as “freemo”–and where width can at times mitigate the lower prowess these uberlight skis naturally have, telemark skiers who take to higher peaks and their variable conditions engage in a slightly different calculus. The telemark turn naturally takes to a damper, often stouter ski, but the lunging turn’s bindings and boots offer fewer options for cobbling together a viable freemo setup. And telemark’s softer boots and lead change–the free-heel method’s uniquely vulnerable transition–complicates skiing in tricky conditions in a way alpine and its equipment need not consider. Again, something more supple gear, including skis, often mitigates.

But with the release of lighter, rigid boots, and with tech-employing free-heel bindings now more widely available, telemark’s modern gear landscape now affords a compliment of equipment that may not directly mirror what the alpine freemo scene offers, but nonetheless grants the free-heel tourer gear that blends aggressive skiing and touring specs. And that is perhaps the Vector ACE’s chief role; a fully modern, big-objective touring ski that helps complete the modern renaissance in telemark touring equipment.