Featured Image: by Jessy Braidwood
Lengths: 178, 186, 194 cm
DIM: 138-112-127 mm
Radius: 17 m @ 186 cm
The Salomon QST Blank continues to grow its cult following and garner awards season after season, winning over everyone from the Josh Daieks’ of the world to skiers looking for their first powder ski.
A steadfast tool from Salomon’s QST line, the Blank hits the mark for powder hungry skiers who value versatility. With a 112-mm waist and a twin rocker profile with Double Sidewall Construction, C/FX Technology and Cork Damplifier, the QST Blank floats in soft snow, powerfully plows through chopped conditions and stays playful and nimble in any terrain.
The ski dates back to when Salomon handed pro skiers on their team, like Daiek, a blank slate to design the ultimate quiver killer.
“It’s the perfect ski—the perfect width, the perfect rocker profile… you can do everything with it, from hardpack and ice to deep pow,” says Daiek, who worked on the ski for three years and many prototypes before it was released. “It’s got good sidecut, which is great when it gets firm and chopped up or when you’re skiing moguls. There’s enough underfoot that it’s still got float and everything you need for high speed, big airs and landings.”
While filming last winter, Daiek and partners like Stan Rey and Alexi Godbout skied the QST Blank together. “It’s what you want to ski every day,” says Daiek, who skied the QST Blank in the French Alps, all over BC and in his home range of the Sierra Nevada.
Daiek says the carbon and flax woven together in the ski’s C/FX fiber technology combines the strength, stability and minimal weight of carbon with the increased level of dampening of the flax. “It’s the perfect combo of stiffness without being too bouncy,” he says.
“Thanks to the new shape, the wider point in the tip and tail, etc., the majority of the team is requesting Blanks,” says Salomon’s Global Product Manager, Quentin Boutry.
Jackson-based Salomon skier Wyatt Gentry, who podiumed at World Juniors in 2023, had never skied a ski wider than 110-mm underfoot and assumed the Blank would be a powder ski. It turned out to be his daily driver. He skis it almost every day. Gentry, his brother Luke and their buddy Tucker Carr shot, edited, skied in and produced the film “A Little Rogue, A Little Rowdy” in 2022. The whole crew was under the age of 19 (at the time), making it the first film of its kind to be able to make that claim.
Gentry is a fan of the ski’s slightly heavier weight. “When you’re in heavier snow or thicker snow, the Blank likes to drive through instead of pulling back or sinking under–it gives you the power to ski the ski instead of the ski skiing you.”
Daiek agrees. “It’s a versatile ski that does it all,” he says.
