
Originally Posted by
Big Steve
Agree re "all-mountain" (see below) but while kick wax is an option in the EC or the interior West, it has limited use here in the PNW because on nearly every tour we encounter numerous hard wax zones and/or klister conditions. On a typical mid-winter tour, we'll start the tour in red, purple or klister conditions, climb through blueX then blue, and maybe to green, then back through those zones on the descent. We also get lots of twilight zone falling snow (near 32F, falling snow), and thus it's not unusual for PNW classic XC racers to race on waxless, e.g., fishscales or zero skis (more common now).
Fat fishscales OTOH are perfectly suited for nearly all PNW touring. The only drawback is slower gliding out on a flat egress on some tours, but the advantages far outweigh that. Well, there is another drawback: Unless everyone in the party has fat fishscales, on many tours the FF skiers will do lots of standing around waiting for the others. ETA: On some tours, e.g., yoyoing or steep ingress/egress that requires skins, FF provide no advantages.
180cm Vector BC or 181cm Charger BC. I'm a bit bigger than you, have both and they get lots of use. My Vector BC is mounted with TTS, although I usually run them with AT boots (TLT6M), which allows me to scoot around easier when in downhill mode. My Charger BC are mounted with Dynafits w/toe shims to reduce ramp delta.
Get skins for them for the steeper uphills.
Not sure what you mean by "all mountain," but no fishscale ski is "all mountain" as that term is typically used (referring to lift-served use) because fat fishscales are slow on firm groomers or other skied out snow and can hang up during turns. OTOH, in soft snow, e.g., pow, wet pow, corn, mush, you won't notice the fishscales on the descent. I've done some very fun lift-served skiing on big soft snow days cuz the fishscales allow you to work over to lines that nobody else has skied, but they are primarily touring tools.
The Annum is a dog, way too soft, XC construction, basically a not-so-fat logging road/meadow skipping noodle. A guy your size will overpower it.
The new BC125 w/bit of tip rocker is an improvement over the original, but they are built like XC skis, i.e., not very robust. OTOH, Voile BC skis are built the same was their smooth-base touring skis. Voile makes tough skis, and pretty light ones at that. All my current touring rigs (4 = 2 fat fishscale + 2 smooth base) are Voiles.
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