Voile Objective BC ski

[Edward Barton]

Some of you have been hoping for a skimo/XCD hybrid ski for backpacking style trips in winter, and it looks like Voile has just produced a new contender. Slimmer and lighter than the Vector BC, but both wider and lighter than the old karhu guides/madshus annums, they are 5lbs for the pair at 178cm, 117x84x102. They have a partial steel edge, with no protection on the tip/tail. Well-suited for multi-day trips over rolling terrain.

Anyone with more experience than I have any thoughts on how they may perform vs the XCD skis?

Also if anyone spends any time on these this season, post your feedback here.

[David Chenault]

Wild Snow has the only pre-release take I’ve seen here.

I’m really excited about these. They won’t be a substitute for true nordic skis, but for mixed-mountain touring they seem perfect.

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

Wow! Very interesting.

They’re a lot lighter (2270g/pr @ 178cm) than my Karhu Guide’s (2800g/pr @ 185cm), wider (84mm vs 78mm) and probably much less of a handful to ski. The shape of the Guide’s makes them require a lot of turn initiation effort, especially with the weight shifted back from wearing a big pack.

I’d love to find a late season deal on a pair in time for mountaineering season.

[Nick Truax]

The ex-Powderwhore himself, Noah Howell and a ski partner, Ben Peters, have put the Objective to work and I believe have given it good marks. I know they both skied this particular model on their trip to AK this year where they skied the Moose’s Tooth. The ski seems like another good offering from Voile.

I’ve personally skied on nearly all of their skis over the last few years and have nothing but positive things to say – Voile makes a bunch of fairly light, predictable, durable, fun, and inexpensive skis to suit a variety of skiers’ needs. I haven’t been disappointed yet! I’m looking forward to including a pair of these BC models in my quiver for sure.

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

Well I managed to find that late season deal. I got a pair from OMC Gear for 40% off, which now appears to have been their last pair. Still some on sale at GearX.com and Steepandcheap for 25-30% off.

I felt nuts ordering them, but I went with 164cm. I don’t need much float for spring traverses, but I do need a nimble ski that finesse through tight trees. With Scarpa Alien’s, Voile Objective BC’s and light tech bindings I’m at 5.0 lbs per foot.

Compared the Karhu Guide’s (181cm) that these replace, they are much lighter (1900g vs 2800g), 2mm wider and hopefully far easier to handle, with more sidecut and rocker instead of huge camber. Gonna put them to the test at the Bob Open in a few weeks.

[Ross Bleakney]

@Dan — Wow, that is a very light and nimble setup. You should have very good grip going uphill, and be able to bounce your way down just about anything. I think gliding and slow descents might be a bit slow is all. With rocker on a short ski, much of the surface will be on fish scales. It won’t matter much on deep snow, but might in the Spring or if you end up on a groomed area. I know people who pick out a non-rockered ski in the Spring, but they didn’t have the option of using something so light. Let us know what you think.

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

I’ll try to post up some thoughts in a few weeks after the Bob Open, but then again, I start a thru-hike 3 days later so that blog post might get put off until fall.

For the type of use I have envisioned for these (ambitious long traverses through diverse terrain), I find that my downhill speed is mostly limited by my ability to navigate through the terrain (e.g. trees), rather than by the glide of the skis. For example, when descending with the Karhu’s, I’d often have to put my skins on for extra drag because they were too much of a handful to ski in the trees. Without the skins, I’d just be crashing through the trees. I’m a pretty good skier, but on a breakable crust those hugely cambered Karhu’s with minimal sidecut are a major handful. They turn easy enough on corn (like any ski) but really get stuck in a rut on crusty snow.

I doubt I’ll be using the Objective BC’s in any conditions where the rocker is needed for float. However, I do think the loss in glide will be more than offset by the gain in maneuverability. My regular powder ski is a DPS Lotus 138, which has zero camber and is all rocker. Just a huge smile shape. Despite being a fat ski, they pivot so easily from the center that I can flick them sideways in a blink. It still catches me off guard with how easily a little turn initiation makes them go from straight to perpendicular in an instant. The Objective’s aren’t nearly this rockers, but I expect the shorter effective length will be a real asset in rugged terrain.

[Ross Bleakney]

Cool. That makes sense.

I don’t know if you’ve skied rocker skis in anything but powder, but they definitely have their advantages in a range of conditions. To me that is one the misnomers about the ski (they aren’t just for powder). For example, in deep, wet snow, they are better than flat, stiff skis because you never submarine — you are on top of things the whole time. Likewise, in breakable crust, they can do the same thing. It is only in perfect corn (or a groomed ski area) where non-rocker skis would be preferable, and even then you would have fun with a rockered ski. I think you’ll like that ski a lot.

[Eric Blumensaadt]

Nice skis but I don’t really need ’em.

My BC skis are:

1. Atomic TM 22 -> for steeper terrain, using Scarpa T3 boots
2. Asnes Combi -Combat Norwegian Army skis (yep, and available only from Neptune Mountaineering, Boulder, CO)-> for less challenging terrain, using 75 mm Vasque leather backountry boots.

Both skis have full metal edges and both have Voile’ release bindings and heel cables. As a Nordic ski patroller I’ve seen enough back country accidents to know I need release bindings.

 

[Edward Jursek]

I went with Altai Kom ski, Riva 2 bindings, and Scarpa T3 boots. Altai now has the Kom in 152, 162, and 174. There customer service was also excellent.

[Edward Jursek]

Needed to change “There” to “their” in my post. Why can’t this be edited? Seriously? We pay for our membership.

[Paul McLaughlin]

Dredging this thread up from the past – Dan – how did those Objective BC’s work out for you?

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

They’re awesome. I had Karhu Guide’s before but these fish scales are a revelation because they have so much more grip than the Karhu’s. Night and day. I think the fish scales are much more “positive” (e.g. they stick out more) so when I use them I almost never use skins. I’ve used them quite a bit on several difference long traverse trips and I’ve never put my skins on even though I was carrying them. You do need to set a more gentle skin track, but you can still ascend at a reasonable speed with these.

So I love them. I think this type of fishscales is a no-brainer on backcountry touring skis. Any downside to having them while skiing is not perceivable, while the upside is huge. Even if you’re just doing powder laps the fish scales are still so handy to have for flat sections, rolling logging roads, long approaches etc. Once you realize how helpful they are, you’ll notice a million times where they would be a benefit where most backcountry skiers just flail along without realizing there’s a better way. Imagine traversing where you get a bit low – instead of side stepping up to gain a few feet, the fish scales do it effortlessly. Or when you’re skiing back out but there is a short uphill section that everyone side steps or bootpacks? No problem.

The other huge thing compared to the Karhu’s is the vastly more progressive shape. The Objective BCs are a nice modern shape so they are easy to ski, whereas the Karhu’s had massive camber – much more like an XC ski – they were very hard to initiate turns with. So the Objective BCs are super light, easy to ski and with a high performance fish scale.

I can’t think of anything better for backcountry traverses. So awesome. The fish scales are all you need so you can normally leave the skins behind. The only time I’ve use skins with them is to add more drag, when I’m skiing downhill through super tight bush/alder/willow. Certainly there are limits to the traction, but they are high enough that if you are setting the route then you can almost always choose a line that works nicely with the fish scales.

For powder skiing, I badly wish all my powder skis had these fish scales. I’ve been preaching to everyone how fish scales in addition to climbing skins are the future of backcountry powder skiing. I was out at a hut the last few nights and on the approach up it is was raining. My skins ended up drenched and glopping. If I had fish scales there were have been no such problem. There’s just so many times where they’d come in handy, whereas you absolutely can not tell they are there when you are skiing downhill powder. The only time you can notice them at all it on groomed runs, which are sparse in the backcountry :)

I wish everyone would get into doing fishscales. I’m second guessing getting DPS for my next pair of powder skis because the fish scales are so awesome. I don’t want to give up performance in the powder by buying a ski with the wrong shape, so I really wish there were more fish scale options for powder skis.

As for backcountry traverse, I recommend getting these really short. I see about 185cm for my powder skis but I’m happy with these in 164cm and would be content with 150cm. A longer length is only needed for shredding at high speeds, which is uncommon on traverses, whereas a shorter length is much easier to handle in those spring traverse conditions where you’re bushwacking with skis on.

[Paul McLaughlin]

Thanks, Dan. My thing is spring Sierra touring on corn, mostly for the scenery and just to be out there – turns are secondary to me. Sounds like these would be pretty nice.

No need to convince me on the scales – wouldn’t take anything else for the Sierra spring. I crossed the range a few years ago on my current skis, much skinnier fishscales (atomic Rainiers) and only used my skins a few times. Tempting to think I could leave them out of the pack.

Any issues with tracking straight on the level?

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

You could totally leave the skins behind as long as you had reasonable expectations for how steep you ascend. I probably won’t bring skins on future traverses and not using them at all on my last 3 even while having them.

I haven’t paid much attention to how they track on level ground. Most of the time I’ve been going up or down, rather than kick/glide’ing on level ground. I did cross the lake below this past spring which is maybe 6 miles long and didn’t notice any issues, but I was also pretty tired at the time and not really in top kick-glide form. I presume the shorter ski + more side cut isn’t as good/fast on flat, but I haven’t noticed much a difference.

[Ross Bleakney]

I have a pair now and like them as well. As mentioned, they are easy to turn. But not so much that they want to turn themselves. They are just a nice, nimble ski, that works well.

I have various skis with fish scales, and they are great. Quite often I leave the skins behind. But I would probably bring them, just in case. You can get by without them if you happen to misjudge the situation, but it gets pretty tiring if you backslide a lot, and are forced to push a lot with your arms, or break trail and make a lot of additional turns. Sometimes the exact same terrain that you did a week before with fish scales requires skins in different conditions. If you don’t want to shell out for full skins, try and find some kickers (which tend to be cheaper, and can easily be transferred to other skis).

I would also offer a different opinion than Dan in terms of grip. I think it really varies depending on where you are relative to the skis. They have some camber and thus have a recommended weight range. If you happen to be on the heavy end of things (for that ski) than you will have great grip going up (and be a bit slower perhaps, going down). If you are the opposite, then you might find yourself slipping backwards a bit. I’ve found that the skis I’ve owned for a while now offer more grip than before, probably due to my appreciation of good craft beer.

[nunatak]

For the numbers people out there my 2017 Objective skis in 171cm with SuperLite bindings weigh about 5.5 lbs/pair. The boots I use are 5 lbs a pair.

 

[Serge Giachetti]

Yeah, I’ll just add my experience too. My first pair of BC skis were voile vector bc’s. As the skis got more use, the fish scales got good and roughed up. Once they had some marks on them, the scales glopped snow terribly. I had a number of extremely frustrating days especially in the spring where these became basically unskiable. I was quite ready to get rid of them by the time I passed them on. I imagine if they weren’t my only skis and I skiied a lot less in them it wouldn’t have been such a problem, but there is no good solution once they get scratched up since you can’t resurface the scales.

In my experience multi day ski trips tend to involve a wide range of snow (and not snow). It’s good to have a pair of skins to take the inevitable abrasion from the not snow, unless you want to spend all day taking your skis on and off.

I also found that the scales slowed me down more often then they sped me up on deproaches. One of my favorite things about multi-day ski trips is effortlessly gliding for miles down long mellow descents. I rarely got this with my fish scales. And when I’d moved on to scaless skis but my buddy still had his scales, I’d be forced to wait for him to catch up instead of just cruising.

Occasionally I’d enjoy the benefits of scales for the extra glide on flats, but I much prefer a good pair of mohIr or mohair/nylon blend (pomoca) for a better balance of grip and glide. Choosing the right pair of skins makes a huge difference though. Some skins are quite sluggish and heavy, like more nylon based bd skins. Skin wax is pretty essential for some trips where glopping can become an issue.

If I could afford to I’d ad a pair of scaled skis to my quiver, I might, but I’d be pretty selective about what trips I used them for and careful to preserve the bases.

Just my two cents. If you do want a nice pow ski with fish scales, Dan, check out the voile hyper vector bc’s. Personally I’d go with the dps skis in a heartbeat if they were in my price range. And if you are reading this I’m super excited about your upcoming tents. You’ve got a great design mind.

[Roger Caffin]

We like fish scales. We find it useful to spray the sole with some sort of ‘non-stick’ which limits how often the snow sticks and balls up. We do NOT, ever, run them across dirt or grass.
Long narrow straight stiff skis: fast on the flat, but difficult to turn.
Softer skis with more curvature: a bit slower, but at least you can turn on them.

Cheers

[Paul McLaughlin]

Ross – if you don’t mind, what length are yours and how much do you weigh? I tend to go with a shorter ski if in doubt, as I’m only out in the spring and on mostly firm snow, and I value grip over glide.

Serge – I’ve learned that I can almost always predict where someone skis by their opinion on waxless skis – skiers in California and the Pacific northwest generally prefer them (except for the folks who go straight up and straight down), skiers from the rockies and the east coast generally don’t. It’s all about the local conditions. Since I ski only in the spring in the Sierra, I encounter mostly spring corn – and often pretty wet stuff; but also icy in the mornings. Conditions in which scales excel, and for which waxing is a nightmare. Combine that with the low angle of most of my travels, so that I only need my skins for short portions of any trip, and it’s waxless all the way for me.

But interestingly, I have never had your issue with older skis glopping more. I’ve used some thoroughly beat up waxless skis, and generally I found the old beat up skis still gripped well, and did not collect more snow than the new. I always use Maxiglide on my bases, and it makes a big difference when the conditions are ripe for glopping – which around here is fresh snow that is relatively warm. at some point nothing will help, but I haven’t found a difference from old to new bases in that regard. Maybe it’s conditions related.

[Ross Bleakney]

@Paul — I’m somewhere around 155 (give or take) and bought the 177 length ones. This was a pretty each choice. I was too heavy for the shorter skis, and while I would fit into the longer ones (from a weight perspective) I figured it wasn’t worth the bother. I really don’t care about speed when I’m using those skis, so less weight and better grip suits me fine.

I agree with your other points. There are basically three ways to propel you up a hill (well, four if you count skating): grip wax, fish scales, or skins. Grip wax is usually a real pain in the butt on the west side of the Cascades or Olympics. The weather is often very close to freezing, and varies during the day, which means that you would have to apply different types of kick wax several times. Skins are fine, but are best when you just go up all morning, and down in the afternoon. Even then if it is a shallow enough grade, I prefer the speed of fish scales. But where fish scales really shine is when you are going up and down, up and down, several times. I’ve done tours where I’ve passed much younger folks in lighter gears, just because they are spending a lot of time taking off and putting on their skins. It is a trade-off though, as Serge said; going down tends to be a bit slower. But again, that has a lot do with where you are relative to the camber.

I also do a lot of cross country skiing, sometimes on an area that is occasionally groomed. I use skis that are not the fastest, but are pretty good on deep snow. I’ve noticed that I move very fast uphill, but unlike a lot of people, I have to push my way downhill. I always thought it was due to my skis (having fish scales) but then I realized my brother, with the exact same skis, had the opposite situation. He was backsliding occasionally going up, but just flew going down. Trade-offs.

I also want to second the recommendation of Maxiglide. It really prevents the glop. I also haven’t noticed my “rock skis” glopping more than my pristine skis. Glop just happens, and when it does I either push through (hoping conditions change — sometimes they do) or stop and apply the goop.

One thing worth noting in all of this is that there is an interesting trend in high end cross country skis. For a long time now, fish scale classic skis have been available for expensive (super light, fast) cross country skis. No one races in them (because waxing is faster) but there is a market for areas like the Northwest. What really caught my eye this year, though, is that a lot of these skis now have built in skins. Fischer, Rossignol, Madshus, Solomon and Atomic, all have skis of this nature (very expensive, very light, permanent skin). There may be others. So far as I know, this hasn’t made it up to bigger skis (by these makers, or other companies, like Viole). Fischer does have bigger skis that have both fish scales and special attachments so that you can easily attach and detach skins (“Easy Skin”) bus so far the trend of using permanent skins hasn’t made it up to bigger skis. It wouldn’t surprise me, though, if we see it in a few years.

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

Great discussion going here. Interesting to hear about Maxiglide. It’s hard to imagine conditions where snow would be glop onto fishscales but not to skins. I use BD glopstopper skin wax, but I’ve still had super sloppy conditions where glopping on skins wasn’t avoidable.

For what it’s worth, I am heavy relative to the length of my skis so that may explain my glowing description of the grip. I’m about 170 lbs these days plus typically a backpack full of gear, and I’m on the 164cm Objective BC’s. So heavier than Ross but on a shorter ski. Mine weigh 2006g for the pair.

As for efficiency, certainly fish scales add some amount of drag, so if your descent is purely downhill then they won’t help. But even here it’s very rare that I’m on a slope where I won’t glide with fish scales but would without them – I’ve never felt like my fish scales weren’t gliding on a surface where I expected regular skis would. My traverses are usually up one side of the mountain and down the other. Low angled slopes are rare.

On a rolling descent (or rolling terrain), I think fish scales are easily going to pay off over a climbing skin setup since they have vastly more glide than even the fastest skins (if you were to just keep your skins on the whole time), or since the drag losses are likely much smaller than the time lost putting skins on/off (if you were to put your skins on for the uphills) or since the drag losses are likely less than the effort avoid putting your skins on for the uphills (e.g. bootpacking, side stepping). As soon as you take the time to put your skins on once or struggle up one small hill without them, fish scales would have paid off.

As for a grip wax setup, I haven’t seriously considered this. I find spring conditions too variable to want to deal with that. Also, I’m approaching this from the perspective of a downhill skier that also does traverses, rather than the perspective of an XC skier that wants to go beyond the nordic track. The kind of traverses I do are usually a bushwack filled spring sufferfest where I’ve got enough to deal with that I don’t want to be figuring out skin wax. If I was doing mid-winter traverses on moderate terrain then waxing might be more appealing. I don’t really see the appeal though – it seems like a lot more hassle for a less reliable outcome even if it can be better in certain situations.

Skiing last week (on the DPS, not the Objective’s):

[Max O]

I wonder what bindings and shoes you guys use on the Objectives (coming from Alpine ski world…)? I am interested in using them (or something alike) for multi-day trips where I may habe to carry them as well some time, so lightweight shoes with soft sole would be very important.

[Roger Caffin]

The transition from sunny snow to deep shadow is where we get balling-up (or glopping). The fishscales are wet in the sun, then they freeze in the shade. A few determined kicks is usually enough.

We used to use leather boots with 3-pin bindings, but that got complicated when Scarpa discontinued leather boots for a while and we had to replace ours. So we switched to the much lighter NNN-BC.

Cheers

[Ross Bleakney]

The transition from sunny snow to deep shadow is where we get balling-up (or glopping). The fishscales are wet in the sun, then they freeze in the shade. A few determined kicks is usually enough.

That is not the only time you can get glop. Sometimes the snow conditions are just gloppy (somewhere a few degrees from freezing). The funny thing is that the only time I’ve had skins glop was under the conditions you mentioned, but in that case I didn’t wax them or treat them first.

As far as boots, that is the challenge. Skis like that are often paired with plastic boots (A. T. or Telemark) just because they are pretty big and have plenty of sidecut. You can drive them with BC boots, but it is harder (although a lot depends on the conditions). The problem with plastic boots, though, is that they can be tiring for long trips. There are people who mountaineer, day after day, in plastic boots though. My guess is the vast majority of longer distance ski mountaineering trips (like this) take place using plastic boots. If you don’t need to ski anything very difficult, then skinnier skis (which can be driven more easily by BC boots) are the better choice, in my opinion.

I personally pair them with (plastic) Telemark boots. With my Atomic Rainiers I use BC boots, and with my other (skinnier) skis I use regular cross country boots. It is easy to ski when your boots are firmer than required for the ski (e. g. using plastic boots on skinny skis) but much tougher to do the opposite. Of course, skills, familiarity, conditions and terrain all make a difference.

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