Another EHP193 Review

[leroy jenkins]

I know a couple people have revied these, but I was interested in hearing everything possible about them before I bought them, so I'll throw my $0.02 in.


Me: 21 year old ex racer. 5'10" 145lbs. I don't do a lot of huge hucks, but like to ski fast, and like 15-30 footers, as long as the landing is smooth. I haven't skied any other strangly shaped ski, such as the spatula, or praxis or anything, so these were a whole new concept for me.


The conditions: Went to Highlands today, and skied a lot of trees, some fairly tight ones, and some wide open stuff in Highlands Bowl. The snow was fairly cut up, since yesterday was the big powder day, but a few more inches last night smoothed things out a bit. The non cut up chunks were about knee to shin deep most places, with a few waist deep turns here and there in the trees.


How'd they do? Fucking fantstic. First lap was down Steeplechase, with a few wide open turns, then into some trees. I was amazed at how easily these things busted through the chop. They almost made chop feel like barely tracked powder. Once I got into the trees, I was amazed at how easy it was to throw them around, and how you could pivot them between the trees. I figured spats would be like this, but didn't think the EHPs would be quite that easy. These things didn't really take a whole lot of getting used to. I though they might be wierd at first, but they were just fun, right off the bat.


High speed, open terrain:

Yesterday, I was skiing my AK Rocket Swallowtails, and was getting all bounced around trying to ski the cut up stuff in the bowl with some speed. Things were even more cut up today, and the EHPs ruled it no problem. They didn't seem to bust through things as much as they just hovered above all the bumpy stuff. Ussually, it seems as though straighlining through fairly tracked out chop is not too difficult, for short distances, but if you try and make big turns, with similar speed, you are most likely going for a ride. The EHPs made these big turns fairly easily, but still got bounced around some.

For high speeds, in open terrain, they actually seemed a bit short. They felt pretty damn stable, but I don't think another 10cm would hurt anything, especially with how easy these are to ski in the trees. I think a 200-205cm EHP would still be fairly easy to ski, considering how much they float, and how stable they'd be, but would be a bit better at high speeds. My 195 Ak Rockets (which everyone says feels like a 185) seem to feel like a much longer ski. I don't know though, the EHPS really didn't feel instable, they just felt kinda short, once I started going fast. They might just take some getting used to, I'm not sure. I still think it would be awesome to offer these skis in a 193, and 203. I'd love a pair of each.

I didn't really get a chance to do many airs, since Highlands doesn't have a lot of hucks, and what it does have doesn't have the best coverage yet, but I did a couple smaller (5 foot, maybe?) airs, and they seemed to be a super stable landing platform. Can't wait to do some decent sized high speed airs, with nice soft landings on these.

I also didn't get too much of a chance to see how they did on hardpack, but the little I did see didn't seem too bad. They were carveable if you really muscled them, and didn't "wander" like I've heard some of these types of skis tend to do. The felt wierd at the end of the turn. They would initiate a turn fine, and carve tolerably through most of the turn, yet when you went to transition to the next turn, it seems like they wanted to just kind of go blah and still keep heading the direction they were a moment ago.

Durability I hit a few rocks, with no ill affect. It didn't feel like I hit them that hard, I think there was a good amount of soft stuff on top of em, but I hit some big ones, and there isn't a single mark on the bases. One edge has a couple burrs, but nothing too noticeable. Like any ski, it will take time to really form an opinion about this.


The ConsNo one every seems to say anything bad about skis they review, which is kinda frustrating when you're deciding what to buy. Like I said, they felt a bit short at speeds, not too instable, but they just felt like a bit more length would make me feel a lot safer at speed. The biggest con I noticed, was that they were a bitch on certain traverses. Skating on these things was a pain, although not impossible. It seemed that about a third of the effort you put into each skate was wasted, with the ski skidding out. It was still doable, but I found it was easier to just push with my poles. Also, you couldn't carve around corners in the catwalks without skidding, so they lost speed everytime a traverse made a hard turn, which happens often at Highlands. Still though, they weren't too slow, I wasn't too far behind the people I was skiing with.


So yea, thats my huge monster of a review. I hope someone benifits from it, cus I took a while to write it. I'm sure theres tons of typos and everything, but I'm not going to edit all that. Overall, I loved these things. I think they'll take a bit more getting used to to really make full use of them, but they seem like an awesome powder day ski. Pretty stable at speed, maybe not as much as I'm sure a 194 squad or something, but they are also a hell of a lot easier to ski in the trees and tight spots than something like that probably is. Great for tearing up all different kinds of terrain with soft snow.

EDIT: I mounted them on the line, part of the "shortness" could have been due to this, I'd be curious to try them about 1 or 2 cm back. The line seems fairly far forward, although I have a feeling that might just take some getting used to. Like I siad before, I am coming from AK Rocket Swallowtails as my go to stick, which have a somewhate rearward mounting point. Also, I never got a chance to ski any true powder. There was a half turn here and there, but it was pretty much all cut up chop. From what I felt though, these things would rule in powder.

EDIT AGAIN After skiing them a bunch, probably about 30-40 days, I decided that they were way too much of a pintail. I had tons of problems trying to stay forwards on them, and found myself WAY back on my tails. Sometimes, this wasn't really a bad thing. If the snow was deep enough, you could rock back onto your tails, and surf through it, completely in control and fairly balanced if you kept you speed up. It was pretty cool to just feel the tails slice through all sorts of stuff while you sat way up on top of everything. However, thats really not what I wanted out of this ski. After careful consideration, I decided to mount them at +1. Well, due to the preexisting holes, that couldn't be done, so it ended up at a bit more like +1.5. I haven't had them in true pow since then, but have had them in corn, make, ice, and hardpack. The forward mounting point was imho, a HUGE improvement. They are way more carveable now, and most of my gripes with the ski, like their lack of stability, and weird balance issues, seem to be solved, while keeping the maneuverability that seemed like such a plus.

I currently use these as my billygoating powder ski, and my peak bagging ski. They are not a wide open high speed ripping ski, however they are fairly stable for how easy they are to ski in tight spaces and crappy snow. This is why I use them to bag peaks. They are not too much to manage in the tight spots, or the weird windcrust, etc, but are stable enough once you get down to the apron. One more thing: In my initial review, I said they made cut up stuff feel like untracked, and I have found that to be true, but only for the cut up stuff from storms deeper than about 18". Any shallower than that, and once it gets cut up, I'd rather have something that would bust through stuff rather than float on top of it.

[Dug]

Good review. Thanks!

[Singel]

Sweet review, very informative! Were you able to attribute the 'short' feeling to the tip (assuming it is a longer than normal tip like on VCT's), or the ramped tail?

[Z]

good review leroy. I have very similiar sentiments after close to 45 days on mine.

Their biggest strength in my opinion is their stompyness. I try to stomp forward, and these things just shine for my style. Once the soft part at the very tip flexes up after impact it will not let you sink. Dropped a cliff yesterday to 2 feet of blower a little far forward and they are just so forgiving. All they want to do is float to the top once you get up to speed/air.

[leroy jenkins]

good review leroy. I have very similiar sentiments after close to 45 days on mine.

Their biggest strength in my opinion is their stompyness. I try to stomp forward, and these things just shine for my style. Once the soft part at the very tip flexes up after impact it will not let you sink. Dropped a cliff yesterday to 2 feet of blower a little far forward and they are just so forgiving. All they want to do is float to the top once you get up to speed/air.

45 Days? Holy shit. I'm guessing you are using these as an everyday ski huh?

One thing I noticed skiing these for the second time, was that they seem to land harder on hardpack than other skis. I think maybe a ski with camber absorbs just a tiny bit of of impact, whereas these don't. Maybe its just my imaginiation though.

[Z]

45 Days? Holy shit. I'm guessing you are using these as an everyday ski huh?

One thing I noticed skiing these for the second time, was that they seem to land harder on hardpack than other skis. I think maybe a ski with camber absorbs just a tiny bit of of impact, whereas these don't. Maybe its just my imaginiation though.

Yeah, im really a one ski type guy. And these things really ski pretty well on hardpack cause they ski short enough to throw around...

[JeffreyJim]

Damn Z---45 days!?!

[dorikin]

awesome review. 45 days? holy sh*t you just got those. u must ski like 1 run a day and go to work.

[thebigeast]

so ive been skiing my ehp's pretty much exclusivily here in utah because its all i got for skis at the moment, prob 15 - 20 days here in utah, i pretty much in love with these skis, but after skiing them hard and in less than ideal conditions i have noticed some durability issues, first off, there was some seperation between the sidewall and the top sheep that started to occur in the tail of one skis and that i brought back to 4frnt, it was epoxyed and returned within 24 hours, after probaly 4 or so more days on the skis i noticed that the epoxy hadn't held and the topsheet was again splitting from the sidewall,
problem number two, after another day or so on them, i noticed that a couple of inches behind the heel piece that the edge and the sidewall are begining to seperate ever so slightly, that looks like its from an small impact to the sidewall, but doesn't justtify the the seperation between the edge and sidewall

[Z]

awesome review. 45 days? holy sh*t you just got those. u must ski like 1 run a day and go to work.

Nope. I ski 4-5 days a week mostly inbounds all day/lift accessed OB. If want proof just look at the bases

[dorikin]

sigh...so jealous. Someday, I will ski 100 days a season...

[pow314]

how do these ski on steep spring corn and semi hard snow

[PNyberg]

soooahh... How have all EHP193 owners mounted your skis? I have mine on the factory line. Feels a bit too much in tight trees but i get better stability at speeds. How do they perform mounted like....3-4cm more forward? Still stable?? Still Tons of float?? Easier to throw around?