A Buyer's Guide for the Saskatchewan Skier
Welcome back to another edition of our Best Skis and Snowboards of 2025 buyer's guide! In this series we'll present our picks for this season's best skis in 3 categories: Best Freeride Skis, Best All Mountain Skis, and Best Budget Skis. We'll also be presenting two brand new ski boots that have us really excited this year. We've been to all the trade shows, read through all the catalogues, and tested all the best gear so that we can give you the information you need to pick out the skis that suit your style, ability, and budget.
Snowboarders, you've come to the wrong place, but fret not, you can find !our recommendations for the best snowboards of 2025 over here!
How We Picked Our Favourites
We've been in this business for over 45 years, and our success has always been grounded in two main principals: honesty and passion for skiing. We're locally-owned and each of our staff is an enthusiast, meaning we actually use the products we sell. We've been every type of skier there is: beginners taking our first turns on gentle groomers, parents wrangling gaggles of giddy toddlers into their first pairs of boots, side-country devotees lining up early for first chair on bi-annual trips to Banff and Panorama, and even half-sane fanatics making a weekly pilgrimage to Whistler. All this is to say that we've seen and done it all, and it wouldn't serve our community or ourselves to recommend ski equipment that won't lead to you falling in love with skiing the same way that we have.
Last year, our staff travelled to Norquay in Banff to get a preview of the new gear for the 2024/25 ski season and took a ton of notes to pass on to the ski community here in Saskatchewan. We had the chance to try out some innovative new technology as well as some improvements to the classics. Below is our pick for this year's best collection of freeride skis.
The Best Freeride Ski for 2025
Our number one pick for freeride skis this year is actually a collection of skis that finds its origin in one of the most unique skis we have ever brought in to our store. The 2025 Optic collection from Line was birthed from the bizarrely beautiful Blade, which aims to merge an ultra-short turning radius with an extra wide tip to deliver some of the freakiest turns we've ever seen.
The Origin of the Optic
Just as Homo habilis is to humans and apes, so is the Blade Optic to this year's Optic collection and its knife-like progenitor. For the past few seasons, Line had offered the Blade Optic as a sort of sub-genre of the Blade series, but now the Optic has evolved into its own distinct species. The 2025 Optic collection is an updated version of the Blade Optic that uses Line's unique Gas Pedal Metal Overdrive™ layer to add stability but maintains enough manoeuvrability to mix in some really creative freestyle skiing.
Who Will Enjoy the 2025 Line Optic Collection?
The Line Optic comes in four widths: 88mm, 96mm, 104mm, and 114mm, each offering progressively more stability and float in deeper snow at the expense of some manoeuvrability.
The Optic 88 is best suited for the skier that enjoys skiing fast through groomed runs, hard-packed snow, and the occasional bit of deeper snow when bouncing in and out of trees.
Its big brother, the Optic 96 (available in two flavours: regular and camouflage) is designed to plow through deeper snow and those chopped-up lines that start to form in the late morning and early afternoon.
Big mountain skiers will absolutely adore the Line Optic 104. This ski has grip and stability unlike anything else, and it floats like a dream. We took this ski through every sort of terrain we could find and it cut through like butter. For a wider ski, the Optic 104 handled high speed groomed runs much better than expected, but it really excelled in the side-country.
We've got them all in stock now!
Which Skiers Might be Better Served by Another Ski?
Though we found all widths of the Line Optic to be supremely versatile, beginners who have not quite mastered moving efficiently from edge-to-edge would likely prefer a narrower, more forgiving ski with a parabolic shape such as the Volkl Deacon XTD. However, for the dedicated beginner who wants to quickly progress into a wider variety of terrain, the Optic 88 is still a great choice.
What are the Best Bindings for the Line Optic?
We've carried the Marker Griffon 13 ID for a long time and it is a personal favourite of ours. The Griffon 13 is a great match for any of the Optic series because it is lighter than Marker's flagship Jester binding, but still incredibly tough with excellent safety features and an anti-ice rail to keep your platform clean.
Also suitable for this lineup is the Strive 14 from Atomic which offers a 3-peice heel for an easier click-in experience and an incredibly low profile toe that gives you excellent control and intuitive ground-feel.
The Series Continues
Next time we will highlight our number one pick for All Mountain Skis. Continue reading on our Best Skis and Snowboards of 2025 Blog.