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By Tyler Mearce in Equipment (10 Comments)

The Pon2oon is the second generation of the venerable Pontoon model; the brain child of the late Shane McConkey.  This is the first major redesign of the ski that arguably popularized the trend toward big, rockered skis for powder.  While there is no doubt that the Pontoon set the trend, the original design has become a bit dated.  Newer designs have brought some serious competition to the genre and the new Pon2oon addresses the market very well.  The Pon2oon has a much longer conventional section in the center of the ski along with lower rocker at both tip and tail.  The result is a ski that retains most of the near magical powder performance of the original, but with dramatically improved stability when the snow is not waist deep.

I first skied the original Pontoon some years back on a day when it had rained over an 18” storm, not your ideal powder day.  The Pontoon handled the thick heavy snow with ease and it really showed me what the concept was all about.  In the years since then, the Pontoon was right at the top of the heap of powder specialty skis but getting to and from the powder or skiing in just a few inches of snow was not a great experience for my tastes.  This year with the new upgrade I was eager to test the new design but it took much of the year for me to hit the right day when I had deep snow and a new Pon2oon available all at the same time.  Finally it happened and it was worth the wait.

The capabilities of this new ski in deep snow are not dramatically different than the old version, but its non-powder characteristics are remarkably better.  The new Pon2oon is notably more stable and predictable in shallow snow, crud and is even reasonable on hard packed snow.  This can be directly correlated with the fact that K2 has stiffened the Pon2oon throughout the entire ski.  Previously the Pontoon was a relatively soft ski, and although that made for a superior powder tool it made for a difficult ride on hard pack or broken snow.   The new Pon2oon is a great upgrade.  This upgrade has not only increased hard snow performance, but also deep snow performance.  The ability to stick landings and let the ski run out at higher speeds has dramatically increased.  The effortless floatation that the Pon2oon provides is as good as it gets, no questions asked.  For the tastes of most, this will remain to be a powder specialty ski, but for the majority this will be far more versatile than the original Pontoon.   The Pon2oon does not ski as short as the old one, but the 189 is still the best size for average to heavy male skiers.