Here’s How We Tested Next Year’s Best Gear

Starting this week, Powder is releasing an exhaustive list of next season’s best skis, boots, apparel, and accessories–all tested and reviewed by our network of gear testers across North America. For 2024/2025, that included 53 pairs of skis, 10 models of boots, 15 apparel kits, and a handful of bindings, backpacks, and other accessories we loved. Those will be rolling out on Powder’s Gear Locker every single day for the rest of the month, with deep-dive reviews on all these products available for anyone, for free.

There’s new stuff from every brand we worked with this year, including things like an entirely new ski line from Scott, a new pro-model ski from K2, some wildly good powder skis from Salomon, Rossignol, Völkl and Dynastar, new men’s and women’s all-mountain rippers from Blizzard, and so much more.

How Do We Test Gear?

This past season, we mixed things up a little bit with our gear testing program, doubling down on authentic reviewing, and testing things mid-winter in as many conditions as possible. From January through April, I tested a handful of skis, all the boots, and much of the apparel alongside a few other testers, including contributor Anneka Williams, our former gear editor Cy Whitling, and our resident telemark expert Jack O’Brien. This part of the test was focused on early-release products, as many ski brands don’t release their new gear in-season and didn’t have skis available for testing until later in the year.

These products were put to the test in places like Jackson Hole and the Teton backcountry, Alta and the Wasatch backcountry, Kicking Horse and Rogers Pass, and Colorado’s Front Range. We encourage our testers to go deep, try weird things on the gear, and really see what it can handle–all while injecting their own sense of fun into the mix.

Related: How Gear Reviews Work at Powder

In early April, the Powder crew headed up to Alberta’s Sunshine Village for a week to link up with our friends at Newschoolers.com to test the rest of next year’s stuff, including some 40 different ski models, apparel, and accessories. Our crew of 20 testers included men and women from all over the world, including Banff local park rats, big-mountain skiers from Switzerland, East Coasters with impeccable edge control, shop owners from various mountain towns, and more.

Every brand participating in the test week sent us a pile of ski bags and boxes, so we had multiple size options for each model, ensuring testers could comfortably try what suited them best. Each day, testers broke into small groups to shoot photo and video content of each model and make sure they got as many runs as possible on each ski. Thanks to our friends at Sunshine Village, we had access to a large hangar to store, tune, and set up skis to make transitions and swapping skis as efficient as possible.

Each tester was given a questionnaire to fill out on each model they rode, to help us gather details on what they liked and disliked about the skis. We don’t use a ranking system here at Powder, instead focusing on objective feedback from our trusted testers. Testers were also interviewed throughout the week to get a chance to further expand on their thoughts on their favorite and least favorite models.

How Do We Review Gear?

After a week of testing, it was time to compile all the information and start sifting through it and writing our Gear Locker Reviews. This was a labor of love, and took the better part of the summer to create the nearly 70 pieces of content we will be showcasing on the site (and in our upcoming print Gear Issue).

Our gear reviews will follow similar formats as in years before, with a look at technical details, construction, and other things to satisfy our nerdiest readers, and a deep dive into how we really felt each ski, boot, binding, backpack, helmet, jacket, and pants performed in real-world conditions. If there was something we didn’t like, we’ll tell you, but the good news is that 2025’s gear is the best yet, and there wasn’t much to not like about it.

If there are products in our reviews you’re psyched to get on yourself, we’ve included direct links to the best place to purchase them. Everything on the site is available at the time of publishing the story.

If you have further questions about gear or want to share any feedback with us on our testing, shoot us an email at reviews@powder.com and we’ll get back to you!

Related: Recap: Sunshine Village Hosts Powder’s 2024 Ski Testing Week