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By Jim Fowler in Equipment (14 Comments)

The Blizzard Bonafide comes in at 98mm at the waist and features the “Flipcore” construction of the Freemountain line.  The Bonafide has conventional camber in the center section of the ski with modest tip and tail rise and 2 ½ sheets of metal.  This construction with layered metal laminates allows Blizzard to build a ski with a thin profile.  This thin profile along with a lightweight center stringer in the core allows the Bonafide to be much lighter than expected for a ski with this much metal.

My first experience on the Bonafide was at Squaw Valley in early January on very hard snow.  The layered metal gave the Bonafide near ice-pick grip in the conventional cambered section and the ski was remarkably damp on the near bulletproof conditions.  Rolling in and out of varied turn shapes, it was easy to see that that the Bonafide changed turn shapes easily and would finish turns smoothly regardless of the radius.  The even flex blends the rockered sections into the overall construction so well that even on the hardest snow conditions, the tip feels  connected and the tail felt grippy and basically conventional.

I was so impressed by the Bonafide that I ordered a pair in 180cm for the rest of the season and spent much of the remainder of this heavy snow year on it.  The Bonafide handles soft crud or heavy crud remarkably well and deep powder exceptionally well for a 98mm ski.  In one instance at Mammoth, I got the Bonafide into some chalky refrozen crud that had a little skiff of chalky windblown snow over the top of it.  The Bonafide initiated easily in this very rough snow and released without getting hung up on the coral heads.  I even tried the 187 length in those conditions and found that it felt very nimble and maneuverable considering the length.  The Bonafide grips as well in the cambered section as any conventionally cambered ski in this width range and yet rolls in and out of crud, junk and powder with the ease that you’d expect from a ski with tip and tail rocker.  The fact that the Blizzard Bonafide does all these somewhat contradictory things so well is a tribute to the effectiveness of the “Flipcore” design.  This truly remarkable blend of characteristics makes the Bonafide one of the most versatile skis that I have ever skied on and makes it a huge winner in the very competitive 98mm width range.