2013's best skis, boots and bindings

Every winter POWDER Magazine calls on skiers who have made the sport the highest priority in their lives. East Coast/West Coast, old school/new school, mountaineers/park rats—we try to cover our bases, because everybody skis a little differently. We convene in our mecca, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and go skiing with a different brand each morning and afternoon. It typically snows a lot. We call it POWDER Week. Our goal is to find the new products that work best for us. We bootpack up to Four Pines and sidestep out of Granite Canyon. We lap the tram and the Mangy Moose bar line. The results are all here. In the following pages we present over 300 products that make this the most comprehensive guide to skis, boots, and bindings on the planet.

The guide includes our Skier’s Choice picks, the gear selected by 15 skiers—ex-patrollers, Jackson Hole Air Force members, POWDER staffers, and diehard locals—that make up the Fantasy Draft team. Our list of Free Agents has all the noteworthy products that didn't make it into anybody’s quiver, but we felt couldn't go unmentioned. We asked Shop Rats, skiers from the best ski shops in the country, to come to Jackson, too. So we also included their favorite skis, since knowing the ins and outs of gear is their job. Lastly, because we can only cover so many laps in Jackson in a week, we asked 40 ski brands to provide a list of their most notable products.

The goal here, of course, is to offer you a place to find what works best for you, just as the Fantasy Drafters did for us. On the following pages you can watch product video, read product reviews, catalog information, and, once you’ve made your decision, click in to buy-now links to purchase the gear that’s going to make your season. — John Clary Davies