Welcome To The '26-'27 POWDER Gear Guide
It’s hard to believe that the time has come yet again. The nights are getting longer, the days are getting colder, and with the leaves changing and snow dusting the high peaks, it’s again time to dive deep into all of next year’s finest wares.
While last season left much to be desired in terms of ski conditions for many places, I like to think of a challenging winter as the ultimate testing ground for ski gear. Most things tend to work pretty well when the snow is soft and the sky is blue, but it’s when conditions are rough and the weather is uncooperative that truly great gear stands out from the rest.
As the snow started to fall and resorts began to open in earnest in early December, we got out for some early-season lift laps in Colorado and Utah before full-time resort and backcountry testing began in earnest in the Tetons and around Mt. Bachelor. We took gear on multi-day ski touring adventures to Georgia’s Caucasus mountains and to the Canadian Rockies and Selkirk Range before bringing the whole POWDER tester team together for the reboot of our annual celebration of skiing at Grand Targhee: POWDER Week 2026.
For an entire week, we dove deep into testing nearly 50 models of skis spanning the range from 95-underfoot groomer missiles to 120mm-wide powder weapons. Grand Targhee resort is the ultimate ski testing battleground, with quite literally every type of terrain at our fingertips, from wide-open groomers, steep bump runs, tight trees, huge cliff bands all the way to a storied big mountain competition venue. Oh yeah, and it snowed a lot while we there.
Mark Riegel
How we test gear:
While it might look like all fun and games, POWDER testers take their jobs very seriously. We’ve assembled a team of veteran ski gear testers all across North America, all hailing from a diverse range of backgrounds. That team includes everything from park rats, freeride competitors, AMGA ski guides, ski patrollers, professional bootfitters and ski techs, ex-ski racers, crusty old-school telemarkers, and hardcore members of the Church of the Seven-Day Recreationalist (me).
We strive to assemble a team with as many different takes on the sport of skiing as possible, because we realize a simple fact: everyone skis their own way. However, while some might lay perfect trenches, some might lay out perfect dub corks, and others prefer to hippy wiggle their way down low-angle powder, everyone shares similar levels of knowledge on how skis, boots, and other gear works. In other words, we are proud of our team and greatly value their opinions.
Every brand participating in our POWDER Week ski test sent us a pile of ski bags and boxes, so we had multiple size options for each model, ensuring testers could comfortably try what suited them best. Trust us, shipping was a nightmare.
Each day, testers broke into small groups to shoot photo and video content of each model and make sure they got as many runs as possible on each ski. Thanks to our friends at Grand Targhee, we had access to a large area to store, tune, and set up skis to make transitions and swapping skis as efficient as possible.
Each tester was given a questionnaire to fill out on each model they rode, to help us gather details on what they liked and disliked about the skis. We don’t use a ranking system here at Powder, instead focusing on objective feedback from our trusted testers. I sat down with testers throughout the week to get a chance to further expand on their thoughts on their favorite and least favorite models, and those notes are included in every review.
Where we tested this year:
- Grand Targhee, WY
- Jackson Hole, WY
- Alta, UT
- Mammoth, CA
- Palisades-Tahoe, CA
- Arapahoe Basin, CO
- Mt. Bachelor, OR
- Mt. Hood, OR
- Caucasus Mountains, Georgia
- Kicking Horse, BC
- GAH Vista Hut, BC
- Cooke City, MT
- Portillo, Chile
- Cardrona, New Zealand
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