2023 Line Pescado

The 2023 Line Pescado is one of the floatiest skis on the planet, offering up a shape and profile that is rarely seen in the ski world. This thing looks a lot more like it’s out of a snowboard catalog, and that you may only need one of them to get the job done. At 125 mm underfoot, it’s literally twice as wide as my old competition mogul skis. With 158 mm in the shovel and 144 in the tail, we’re dealing with some large numbers here, and Line wouldn’t have it any other way. Shape and width aside, the enormous swallow tail really makes this thing stand out. There are other wide skis out there with more traditional shaping, but these certainly are the outliers of the bunch.

Built with Line’s Partly Cloudy core consisting of a blend of maple and paulownia wood, the Pescado has a nice mix of light weight snap and strong and stable performance. Since these skis only come in a 180, it’s easy pickings on the size chart. They produce a turn radius of 19.5-meters and tip the scales at 1950 grams per ski. When you look at them, it’s nearly impossible to think that they’re under 2000 grams, but with the paulownia and the missing material from the swallow tail, it does come into being pretty readily. As such, they’re floaters of the highest order—willing and capable of staying on top of any depth of snow, from Alaska untouched to Alta dumps. There is quite a bit of tip rocker to go along with the taper shape, and when you put the skis together, it’s fairly obvious that the bend in the shovel is meant for serious flotation.

The swallow tail is an interesting, but somewhat obvious, conclusion to the ski’s construction. It allows snow to pass through the opening, leading to a smooth and easygoing feel to the end of the turn. In addition, it allows the edge to be longer on the sides, so you don’t lose any control. This shape has been proven in the snowboard world year after year, and it’s great to see it filter in to the ski realm as well. The wings of the tail are more flexible than those found in Line’s other swallow tail ski, the Sakana, and it lends to a more powder-oriented performance. The combination of the wide and spoony shovel contrasted with the open swallow tail is about as strange-looking as it gets, but you can’t argue with results—this thing rips in the soft stuff.

If you’re looking for pure powder performance with innovation and modern shaping, look no further than the Line Pescado. The shape and the construction make for easy turning regardless of depth, and the unique nature of the ski should speak to ravenous powder hounds all over the world. It snows somewhere on earth every day of the year, and to that end Line invented the Pescado.