I've skied them, how about a mini-review?
Setup: 2011 179 Hellbent, Dukes mounted +4
Snow: ~2ft of Hokkaido pow, some a bit chopped
Skier: 5'10", 200lbs, I can ski down things.
I own 08/09 Hellbents and 09/10 EP Pros to give some comparison. I was skiing the EPs that day.
These things are SO much fun in pow. You just can't sink them and they're insanely stable.
They're roughly the same flex as the old ones IMO. Still very soft and they still flap like crazy on the hardpack. Stiffer than the EPs for sure though.
They're not quite as easy to turn in the pow as the EP but they feel extremely similar to the old Hellbent. If you liked the old Hellbent you'll love these.
In chopped/partly tracked stuff they are just amazing. It's like skiing on a bulldozer. Small trees, children, lumps of snow, whatever, you just go straight over it.
Extremely confidence-inspiring. You feel like you stomp the shit out of everything. I didn't hit anything huge but I'm sure it would have been a super easy landing.
Fairly poppy still but I suspect the tip/tail weight is becoming an issue.
The weight was the one thing about this setup. Probably because it had a Duke on it but it was easily the heaviest setup I have ever used. This contributed to the bulldozer-like quality but meant it was not quite as much fun for stupid stuff compared to the EP.
The graphic is siiiiiiiiiiick. And like all good K2's there's heaps of cool stuff hidden in the top sheet. Oh and massive bonus: they have put a bevel on the edge of the topsheet, after several days of being thrashed they still looked in good condition, unlike previous K2s which shred the top sheets if you so much as look at them.
