Joe on the Carbon Megas 188, last winter in Colorado near WildSnow Field HQ. It is surprising my camera had a fast enough shutter speed.
Another example of the new trend in skis, Carbon Mega scores a 77 on our weight/surface chart. It is our 9th lightest plank by surface area out of our more than 40 sampled ski models. If you want a big ski that still tours, fire up a pair of BD Split Skins on these power tools and enjoy. (That said, any 120 mm wide ski is going to be heavy compared to classic touring skis, so don’t expect these to uphill in the feather class. They’re a specialized tool and appear to be one of the best in their class, if not World Champion.)
Black Diamond Carbon Megwatt has new construction for 2013/14: super light.
WildSnow production assistant Joe gave the Carbon “Em” a go last winter:
“When these slicers of raw primeval powder were thrown my way mid-March I wasn’t quite sure that having another ski 120+ underfoot made sense considering we were experiencing temperatures in the mid-60’s with slush on all angles, with muscle T’s coming back into style. Thankfully April came in like a big fat blue tuna and out came the sashimi sticks — also known as Carbon Megawatts.
Having mounted but not skied the current year’s offering it is 100% clear this is ski is in a whole other breed. See Louie’s review. Colors have changed to dark blacks and blue, gone are the beefed up top sheets in favor of flat textured surface, and the weight has dropped even more (see the intro above).
Paired with BD’s Ascension skins, bikini cut to shave a few grams, these skis became my go-to almost every day of the month. Longer tours didn’t bother the big sticks one bit (188’s were our test size). In the soft stuff they shined with large arcs and the tachometer of a Ferrari built in by the boys from Zhuhai (the site of BD’s new 43,000 sq. ft ski manufacturing facility in China). Euro glisse turny-turns are not this plank’s forte but if necessary you can crank out tight semi-arcs and bury the tips when pressured — highly pressured. The skis have a very neutral mount point further aiding in maneuverability under any given surface.
Few shortcomings were observed: the usual poundage of snow piling on top (somewhat addressed by an application of fluoro wax) and obviously the disadvantage of having to widen or simply make my own skin track everywhere I went. The way they ski down was worth both hassles on the up.”
2013-14 Carbon Megawatt rocker profiles. Big ski with plenty of slarv. We noticed a bit of double camber in the tail area of our test samples; presumably the production skis on the market next fall will be near perfect.
A definite pick for the WildSnow sashimi tool set, otherwise known as Ultimate Quiver.
Dimensions & Weight: 188 cm, sidecut 147/120/127 radius 28 meters, 64.4 ounces, 1824 grams
Available fall of 2013.
WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou (Louis Dawson) has a 50+ years career in climbing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski down all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest mountain.
