Since its inception in 2005, Salt Lake City-based boutique ski maker DPS has been combining rocker and carbon fiber in experimental ways. (One of the company's partners, Peter Turner, is the former R&D manager at Volant Skis, the company that created the now legendary Spatula, the world's first reverse-camber, reverse-sidecut ski.) The Spoon 150, which is still in the concept phase and won't hit shelves until 2013, is its most radical design to date. Looking to create more lift and smearability in deep snow, DPS engineered the ridiculously fat Spoon (150 millimeters underfoot) with a completely convex base. But because the shape—the most extremely rockered ski the world has ever seen—allows for virtually no edge grip, its engineers added what they're calling cleats, or "downward vertical undulations," designed to give you some bite in firmer conditions. According to DPS, test runs in fresh snow in Alaska this spring yielded "long, 100-foot smears at 30 mph, with unmatched reeling sprays." No word yet on how the cleats dig into the firmer stuff. 154/150/152
Photographer: Courtesy of DPS
