For a discerning skier in the Wasatch, the Line Vision 108 was a hats off high praise ski. This is a capital F… fun ski.
The Line Vision 108 — it is many things. A far as we are concerned, the 108mm waist floats in Wasatch powder and commands a wider breadth of snow conditions.
The Basic Stats
- Weight (183cm): ~1640g
- Dimensions (mm): 142-108-128
- Available sizes (cm): 175 ,183 ,189
- Construction: THC Aramid / Carbon / Fiberglass
- Sidewall: Calling it a full sidewall
- Mount/Stance behind center (mm): -45.3
- Tip height (mm): 51
- Tip rocker length (mm): 413
- Tail height (mm): 32
- Tail rocker length (mm): 372
The Goods
I do not take this for granted. It is special. And totally incredible. No matter where you live. Day one on the Line Vision 108 came after 154cm with more falling, and this on top of about 180cm for the season. As far as reviewing a ski, it was kind of a soft ball. A soft ball of awesome.
I don’t think we skied anything over 35 degrees and mostly 30 and some even less. This is a good test of a powder ski because low angle can equate to torture if your skis don’t plane up and ride at slower speeds. I had been on the Praxis Protest for most of the fall. Early on conditions were safe, minus rocks, stumps and such. The Protests were a dream as we were able to ski some really fun steeper lines. It was an early fall to remember. However, after a dry spell followed by more early season snow the conditions became dangerous. I took the Protests into mellower terrain and found them to be one of the most maneuverable skis I’ve been on for swooping through aspen glades in what was very deep, soft snow. Confidence in them was very high for both slower speed slalom through tight brush and trees as well as opening it up in the alpine.
They are really an incredible ski. And then the Vision’s showed up and I put the Protests away kind of thinking, shit, I’m going to miss those. I took the Vision 108’s out my first opportunity on what I knew would be an all-time powder day – I tossed them the softball of awesome and the Line Vision 108 hit the cover right off it. Legendary. It was a snow eating bonanza, over the head, blinded by the white, pounds, high fives, laughing all the way kind of day. It was a day that cannot be taken for granted, special and incredible and we had a week’s worth of them stacked up as the snow kept falling. Praise be.
Dimensions (mm)— The Praxis Protest (left 187cm): 139-128-132. To the right, a slighter skinnier Line Vision 108: 142-108-128.
The storm ended and the powder got skied and skied and popular backcountry zones got mobbed and flogged like a Friday night. So I got to ski the Visions in in-bounds style chop in what is supposedly the backcountry. It was super fun skipping over tracks and hitting deep soft pillows between them. Where the tracks got closer together and the snow was more compact and skied up the Visions managed really well for their weight. I know other skis I’ve been on would have been a bucking bronco in similar conditions. 8 seconds of terror if I could hold on that long. But, while the Visions were not as bomber as a heavy inbounds ski, I was really satisfied.
“I took the Vision 108’s out my first opportunity on what I knew would be an all-time powder day – I tossed them the softball of awesome and the Line Vision 108 hit the cover right off it. Legendary. It was a snow eating bonanza, over the head, blinded by the white, pounds, high fives, laughing all the way kind of day. It was a day that cannot be taken for granted, special and incredible and we had a week’s worth of them stacked up as the snow kept falling. Praise be.”
The Vision line of skis isn’t technically billed as a backcountry ski. Line calls them a lightweight freeride ski. They are absolutely light enough to qualify as a pure backcountry ski with room for a pocket full of snickers and a half-full flask to boot. I took them to the resort for some skiing with my kids and a few days with friends. I figure this is relevant to backcountry if you ski where other people ski (which is damn near everywhere) as well as a hint to how they’ll do as we get into spring and summer and the conditions harden up. These skis rail groomers! They slide through bumps like pantyhose. Do pantyhose slide through bumps? Oh you know they do and with an easy, silky pleasure. Try it! And they slip-slide through kid tree runs, which very much resemble backcountry exits. And all this with tech bindings and touring boots. This ski is fun to ski inbounds. It is different and doesn’t stand up to crud as well as a resort dedicated and heavier ski. A bit less blasting through and more aiming yourself around or over. And that is still really fun and I look forward to testing the theory that its performance on smoothish groomers may equate to a great ride on smoothish corn. But please, not for many months.
The skis arrive at a respectable ~1640g in a 183cm length. Right in the sweet spot for heft on the downhills and lightness for ascending.
Small side note. I love the Moment PBJ (now Wildcat 101) for inbounds skiing. So one spring I mounted them up with touring bindings. They have a reasonable shape and sidecut for touring. They aren’t that heavy. But they just didn’t ski as well in the backcountry. I put the alpine bindings back on and am back in love with them for their intended purpose. I bring this up because I feel like I could mount alpine bindings on the Vision’s and be pretty damn happy with them inbounds.
And probably here is why. God may have invented THC because she is heavily invested in Pepsico/frito-lay (dad joke) but who ever invented THC, aka Triple Hybrid Camber down at the Line labs seems to have done a great job, ummm, with ummm, doing, you know, science and shit, what are we talking about? Anyway these skis are fucking great, man. Seriously. Why are you laughing?
So Triple Hybrid Camber is a melding of (you guessed it) three different materials (Aramid, Carbon fiber, and Fiberglass) in order to, not unlike its namesake, mellow the harshness of rough conditions. I don’t know man. I’m just a volunteer here, but it seems to work.
I haven’t yet had the Visions out in truly atrocious conditions, in fact I’ve had it out in some of the best conditions I’ve ever consistently had the great pleasure to be out in. But at the time of this writing I have had them out in the backcountry 26 times (out of 45 tours this season so far) and inbounds 5 times. The review is not over but here is where things stand:
Light pow: great, fun as all hell
Deep, light pow: greeaaaat (sound of angels singing)
Heavy pow: great
Deep, inconsistent pow: great (caveat below)
Soggy mess: great
Groomers: great (great being great for the width)
Skied up moderately heavy pow: good (good being great for the weight)
Pushed around pow, western ice: really good (for the weight)
Supportable wind crust: good
Zipper sun crust over deep powder: great (required some active skiing!)
Wind buff: really good
Unsupportable wind/sun crust: good. And good, being better than average for sure. For me this is a test of a touring ski. This scenario is so common, there is good powder to be had but you have to get there and get back and the conditions to do that, can be coral reef, breakable crust, dust on crust and icy luge track. If possible I want to a. survive, b. thrive, c. enjoy all of these conditions as well as the actual powder I’m seeking.
Spring skiing: Spring brings our only additional caveat to what has become a double thumbs up review.
Caveat number one. There is a reason 108 isn’t the widest ski made. There is a Vision 118. And on this one particular day I bet that would have been a riot. The snow was very deep and there were transition zones where the terrain gentled out, and where the wind deposited more snow. In a run you could go from about a foot of pow over wind-stiffened base straight to damn near bottomless snow in mid-turn. Or even just from deep and light to deep and less light and in these spots especially I (we) had to be aware of not being too forward on our skis. Far from being something unique to the Vision 108, everyone remarked about the phenomenon in this phenomenally deep and variably soft snow. All I’m saying is aside from adjusting to the conditions, I could have used more length and more width.
Caveat 2. There is a reason 108 isn’t the narrowest ski made. There is a Vision 98, which I haven’t tried, and of course other narrower and more fully cambered skis for harder snow conditions. See below.
Turn shapes. These skis can ski tight. I’m talking about Wasatch wiggles here, like you judge your ski day only by the number of turns you make. I got 80,000 turns today and never left sight of town. But that is not all they can do. If you judge your ski day on your hat blowing off and your eyes freezing wide open in terror, you can go very fast. Me, I like a little of each and generally conditions and terrain do call for some skidded turns, some small turns, some big turns and some no turns, and certainly the skis have never prevented me from accomplishing this. I like to jump off small things and whip around and have a really fine time. But, freeride wise, if I’m honest with myself, which I seldom am, I’m not as freeride as these skis would probably allow.
The Line Vision 108 offers ample tip rocker: ~51mm tip height and rocker length of 413mm in the testes 183cm length.
Two things remain. Spring conditions and durability. Durability thus far, the skis are in great shape. I’ve definitely hit some rocks and one stump nose first – which was very shocking, and so far so good. So can we call this a wrap for now and check back in April, or, the way this season is going, July?)
The winter’s pack has met with record high temperatures this spring. The melt has been fast and the creeks are flowing with fury. There have been some good corn days, there have been some bad corn days, mush, breakable crust, sun-cups, runnels, wet avi debris the such and what have you. The Vision 108 offers a good width for breakable crust, and a great ski for the hero conditions of perfect corn or even deeper than perfect corn. For me, the 183 length becomes a bit long for jump turns or maneuvering in narrower spaces. And for me the width becomes a bit cumbersome in harder spring conditions.
My first ski on the Vision 108 was December 14, ’22. I skied it probably 60 of my 80 (and counting) days of touring this (extended) season plus a few days at the resort. Most of those days I would recommend it without any reservation. A few days included a caveat, but still a recommendation. It is summer skiing now and the 108’s are summer waxed and waiting for fall. They held up very well over the season, and I didn’t baby them, so durability has been very good.
