2025 Volkl Blaze 94

With a new Blaze 94 for 2025, Volkl took an already awesome ski and just flat-out made it better. We see a lot of companies with wholesale changes and others with minor tweaks one way or the other. Volkl does the Blaze line a solid by taking the good parts and making them better. While the original Blaze series was built to take the hybrid touring market by storm, it actually found an unlikely home as a dedicated resort ski with the 94 being the more versatile. When skiers found that they were light, energetic, fun, and held a great edge, they were all in. While the 94 lacked a bit of precision and sophistication in the past, those aspects are now fully in the new 94.

The 2025 Blaze 94 uses a similar wood core as the Blaze 114 with a multilayer use of poplar and beech to go along with their Green Core. In the middle of the ski, Volkl uses two PET plastic strips that are made from recycled plastic bottles. This works great, and if you think plastic gets a bad reputation in ski construction, it’s certainly unwarranted. These skis are smooth and light—the engineers can press this material into various densities and weights, so they don’t have a hard time making it work well for a ski. The underfoot metal laminate is now full width as opposed to partial, putting more emphasis on a carved turn and proper edge grip. We also get 3D Glass that stiffens the ski and increases energy. Combating the lightweight potential for chatter, Volkl uses their suspension tips and tails to dampen the ride and create a smoother overall snow feel. The new 94 hits 1687 grams per ski in the 179 cm length, up from 1570 from last year. This puts more of an all-mountain emphasis on the ski, moving the needle away from the touring world and more to the resort realm. Tester Jeff Carpenter states that it’s “A fun lightweight ski with a surprising amount of flotation in 10" of fresh snow. Excelled in the bumps and trees. Tips got a little chattery at speed but that's to be expected with such a lightweight construction.”

The big story with the ski's shape is the implementation of the 4 Radius Drive. While Volkl has been big movers in the 3D Radius Sidecut in many of their skis recently, the addition of the fourth radius is the next thing. With a shorter arc in the very tips and tails, the ski is easier to initiate and completes turns with pep. This also opens the forebody zone to have a longer arc, making the 94 more amenable to speed and more consistent at shallower edge angles. Overall, the 4 Radius Drive makes the Blaze 94 easier to turn in a variety of conditions and terrain. We noticed better long-turn compliance to go along with the returning lightning quickness that the ski has always provided. Blaze 94, like many other Volkl skis, has a long and relatively flat rocker profile. This makes the ski easier to turn still, without missing out on the flotation aspect. Bob St.Pierre notes that during the test, “This ski does it all. Great groomer ski, excellent tree and bump performance, and enough width and rocker to aid in flotation, although there are certainly better options out there for deeper snow. I really like the combination of light weight shovels and tails to go along with the sturdy feel underfoot for carving and mobility.” It does seem like blending light weight turning with more stability makes sense.

This move to the more all-mountain side of the spectrum is a good one for Volkl. While Blaze was originally slated to be a 50/50 ski that worked great both uphill and downhill, it seems the market shifted on that premise. Dedicated tourers gravitate to much lighter gear while resort only skiers are searching for more stability and predictability. That’s where the new Blaze 94 finds itself—leaning more to the everyday downhill skier and allowing the backcountry enthusiast to be more mindful of weight savings for efficiency.