Highway to Fjell

I was going to wait until next year to buy these skis, but I was going to buy them no matter what.  It's just one of those things when you find out about, you're like, fuck, that's what I've been looking for!

Most of you can stop reading here, because it has no relation to 100mm waists, tip and tail rocker, or any of that trendy shit.  This is something you can barely get in America.  There's only one distributor nationwide and they are in Colorado.

Thing is, they aren't boutique skis.  They are considered quite a wide Fjellski by Scandi standards.  Yeah they have Tele and AT and all the stuff that is popular here, but they also have a good following of mountain skis, and Fischer and Asnes make a good deal of skis for this market.

In America we call this XCD.  But in America we tend to get waxless bases and some watered down designs of what can be bought in Canada, Asia and Europe.  Part of the reason is we have different conditions than these countries, but also our market is way different.

We may not have the high, timberless plateaus of Norway, but that doesn't mean that some of their skis are good for what we do here.  Among those is a ski that was developed as a modern ski for NATO.  Apparently it turned out to be such a good ski for light boots and bindings in mountainous terrain that Asnes branded the Ingstad after the Norwegian explorer Helge Ingstad.  His face is adorned on the skis to remind you this is a ski to do something special in.

To me the Ingstad embodies the perfect 'workhorse' ski.  Light enough to be skis with touring boots and NNN bindings, long and cambered enough to be an efficient tourer.  The wax base with integrated kicker skin lock system gives you options of the wazoo for dialing in your grip and glide.

These skis were to be a wax base compliment to my Fischer S Bound 78 skis.  Very similar in dimension and length, playing around with them they are amazingly similar in camber and flex.  I suspect they will ski very similar.

This is a ski I envision myself skiing Marcy with (those kicker skins will be tits for the climb).  It's a ski I will ski 20 miles of rolling wilderness trail with.

I don't believe in quiver killers, but if there could be one, it might be this ski.  It's one of those skis if you are willing to put in the skill to handle it, I'm sure will reward you with great accomplishments.

I'm sure it will be fun.  Can't wait to ski it!

Those do look like nice skis. Though having old Helge staring at you all the time could be a little off-putting. Can we assume that you got the Asnes "Skinlock" system? If so, I will be interested to hear how the system performs under varied conditions. Those little slots look like they could easily get clogged with ice or mung. Fischer has a similar system called "Easy Skin" but the hole in the ski looks bigger and easier to clean out.

A look at the Asnes web site really underscores the enormous gap between Scandinavian ski culture and what passes for ski culture in North America (Telemark Dave has mentioned this before). Asnes builds a ski and actively promotes it as "the ultimate hunting ski for grouse hunting by the timberline" because "KONGSVOLD is developed for those who use dogs for hunting and leisure. Therefore, the ski does not have steel edges in order to prevent dogs from cutting themselves." And if that isn't enough, they have two models of hunting skis. If you read between the lines, you might conclude that this would be the ultimate meadow-skipping and/or golf course touring ski. It looks light, turny and ideal for easy BC conditions where edges are not really needed. Can you imagine the XC ski salesperson in a North American shop, saying "yes, sir, our grouse hunting skis are right over here." Assuming that there are any skiing grouse hunters over here, they are going to have to figure it out all by themselves.

It is interesting to note that your skis were made in the Czech Republic (see specs), I wonder if they came out of the Elan factory?

I am here to post in this oh so righteous thread.  

Oh, and to say Asnes makes the coolest core skis.  I've got two pair of the wood Tour Langrens , and two pair of 1992 Telemark Competitions that I got in a pro deal - sponsorship from the owner of Asnes.  He dropped by Vemdalen Sweden during the '91 World Championships to pimp his skis - he wanted to spread the love to North Americans...
They were (are) wicked, wicked killer fast skis.  There's only one way to turn them, and that's at warp factor 11.  Two layers of titanal, full torsion box construction, and wood core.  I'll have to take them out to play next time I get out lift served skiing.  They might actually be a tad more fun with modern 4 buckle plastic boots to drive them... Maybe.