POWDER Magazine

Get POWDER in your Google feed Are you interested in winning free skis and a free issue of POWDER Magazine’s soon-to-be-released print magazine? (If you answered no please check your pulse). The Ellis Kanso 106 earned an Editors’ Choice nod from POWDER for FW26/27, and now one of you will be taking a pair home. The winner gets one pair in their choice of length ($1,049 MSRP), plus a copy of the new POWDER print issue. Keep reading for how to enter, giveaway rules, and more.

Get POWDER in your Google feed With the 2026/27 World Cup season just around the corner, the greatest ski racer of all time (the G.O.A.T., if you will) took to Instagram and YouTube to address any questions and rumors about her plans for the season. For the last 16 years, Mikaela Shiffrin has dominated World Cup Alpine ski racing in the slalom discipline.

Get POWDER in your Google feed Can you hear that? It’s the sound of snow guns clicking on at Killington, Vermont. On Tuesday, October 6, as temperatures plunged to near freezing, the resort underwent its first major snowmaking test of the season.

Get POWDER in your Google feed The humble ski ticket is in a weird place. With the advent of multi-passes, they’ve become, in many places, wildly expensive, exceeding $100, $200, or even $300. That’s a fundamental shift in ski resort economics. And while you could argue that multi-passes, for all their complications, are a great deal for diehard skiers, there remains something special and nostalgic about going skiing for just a few bucks. This winter, that dream doesn’t have to stay a dream.

Get POWDER in your Google feed Hot on the heels of a previously announced terrain expansion, Loon Mountain, New Hampshire, has shared plans to push its boundaries even further, tacking on an additional 280 skiable acres, another peak, and four new ski lifts. The proposed area borders the current South Peak area, just over the boundary line next to the Timber Town quad.

Get POWDER in your Google feed Skiers have seen first flakes fall in Montana, California, Utah, Colorado, Oregon, and even Arizona this season, but the East Coast had been impatiently waiting for its first taste of winter, until now, that is. The Mt. Washington Observatory, located at 6,288 feet above sea level on Mt. Washington, New Hampshire, the Northeast’s tallest peak, saw its first snowfall of the season on October 5, 2026.

Get POWDER in your Google feed Ski resorts from California to Alberta have recorded their first flakes of the season, but these storms have been small, and the snow hasn’t stuck around. That could change with a storm expected to hit the western U.S. next week, according to meteorologist Chris Tomer. Tomer, a popular meteorologist amongst skiers, said in his Mountain Weather Update for October 6, 2026, that a cold front is brewing in the Northern Rockies.

Get POWDER in your Google feed Fresh off the release of their live-scored, feature length, team film, Ornada, it seemed Armada skis could not stop mic-dropping cool stuff last winter. In one fell swoop, they added Ben Richards to the team and made the announcement by default when he climbed on top of the first FWT podium of the season with a pair of their new skis, the Antimatter 114, in hand.

Get POWDER in your Google feed Ski metaphors grow on trees. They’re a dime a dozen. They’re as familiar as the furniture. Sorry not sorry—we’re just preparing you for the fact that, yes, this review is going to start out with another ski metaphor. Rossignol’s Sender Free 118, which traces its lineage back to the beloved Blacks Ops 118, feels like a monster truck. If you’re sick of all those bumps and jolts halfway through a powder day, these are the skis for you.

Get POWDER in your Google feed The Elan Ripstick is perhaps the biggest dark horse in the all-mountain/freeride ski category. While many 100-ish underfoot freeride-oriented skis wind up somewhere along a Goldilocks scale (too soft, too aggressive, too similar), the Ripsticks seem to be just weird enough to stand alone. Developed with Elan’s W Studio athletes, the Ripstick 100 W hits that sweet spot mid-width in the line up, but has a shape that allows for much more than meets the eye.