You’re (Still) Going to Love the New Blizzard Black Pearl Skis

Last year, ski company Blizzard set out to redesign the brand’s flagship Black Pearl 88, one of the industry’s bestselling skis. To some, it was a questionable decision: Why change something that’s been so well received? “It was so stressful,” says Leslie Baker-Brown, North American marketing manager at Blizzard Tecnica and global leader of its Women 2 Women Project. “There were moments when we were like, ‘What are we doing? Why are we doing this?’”

The Pearl, which was introduced in 2011, steadily gained popularity until sales skyrocketed in 2015; it’s been a bestseller ever since. The Black Pearl line has always been solidly positioned as “all-mountain ski,” which is to say they are capable of skiing in any terrain—groomers, bumps, trees, chutes and bowls. In terms of whom the Pearls are designed for ability-wise, well, this is the skis’ key differentiator and the secret to their success. Built to be forgiving from the outset, the Pearl 88 has also been able to transcend the pigeonhole label of “intermediate” ski because, frankly, it rips. When it hit the market, it seemed women from intermediate to expert levels finally had planks they could enjoy—with a huge sweet spot and enough stability and backbone to stand on and give ’er.

The ski shifted the paradigm for women’s gear at the time, being widely credited with opening the entire mountain for women of all levels. The Pearl 88 was so successful that it became both an industry paragon and bane (some speculate that its long-term success may have kicked off a backlash of eliminating women-specific designs in lieu of unisex models for everyone). Blizzard eventually added two other waist widths into the line, one slightly wider and one narrower. So, while the brand had retooled the Pearl 88 before, the 2024/25 redesign was the first major overhaul of the product in four years and Baker-Brown was under immense pressure to get it right.

“We were like, ‘Let’s not mess this up,’ but we knew there were things we didn’t like about the previous iterations that we wanted to change,” Baker-Brown says.

The Black Pearls Get New Construction and Widths

Previously, the Black Pearls relied on carbon and not metal to give the skis strength. As a material in ski construction, carbon fiber is prized for its strength-to-weight ratio, but it can also feel skittish and overreactive. Metal layers, on the other hand, are far steadier and damper, but they can make the ski too torsionally stiff to be forgiving and in the Black Pearl’s case, would add heft to a ski that’s often billed as lightweight.

For a possible solution, ski designers at Blizzard looked to the brand’s successful freeride-oriented women-specific Sheeva line, which is constructed using what they call Flux Form. Rather than using one sheet of metal in the ski’s layup, Blizzard cuts it into panels and layers them in, allowing the ski to flex smoothly without being too heavy duty or stiff. Blizzard’s research and development folks figured this technology could solve the skittishness of the Black Pearl without compromising its forgiving nature.

“It’s the first time we put metal into them in a long time,” Baker-Brown says. The end result, she adds, actually ended up being a little lighter in weight because they required less glue.

The brand also took a hard look at the two other waist widths in the Black Pearl line, the wider 97 mm and the narrower 82, and opted to change their dimensions (the 88s remain the same). Now, you will find a Pearl 94 with a slightly softer flex, to align with the industry trend of a narrower all-mountain ski, and a Black Pearl 84, a groomer-centric ski with a touch more versatility in softer snow. 

Tested: The New Black Pearls

So, the burning question is, of course, how do the new Black Pearls ski? Did Blizzard accomplish their goals?

I’ve been a ski tester for many years now, working as an editor and later a contributor at SKI Magazine. Last December, I skied the entire lineup in Vail, Colorado, during SKI’s media week to learn about and test the new 2024/25 skis. It was early season with warmer temperatures, so we didn’t venture off-piste, but there was some boot-top fluff on the groomers from the night before and snow was still coming down. I skied the Pearls at the very end of the day when my not-yet-seasoned legs were burning.

I started with the classic 88 waist-width, wanting to compare it to my own earlier iteration of the Black Pearl 88, which is my daily driver when the pressure is high and skies are dry at my home hill of Steamboat Ski Resort in Colorado. The word that immediately came to mind when I took my first turn was “trust.” Even though the skis were prototypes and too long for me—176 cm—I was impressed with how easy they were to initiate into the turn. Still, no surprise there. That’s what the Pearls are known for.

I started to feel the difference when I got it up to speed. It felt damper, smoother and more stable, and it handled push-piles of slop far better than the version I owned at home. The skis felt more stuck to the snow and had a calm and steady vibe that gave me confidence to stop worrying about the weird snow conditions underfoot. It was like the skis gave me more energy than I put into them, providing a surprising amount of rebound considering my legs had already been pleading for après before I clicked in. When I came upon a ski-school train and backed off the gas, the skis listened immediately, content to let me do all the driving.

Though the 88 will likely continue to be the brand’s bestseller, and the 84 skied much the same albeit with a little more quickness and eagerness to be on edge, I must admit I was most impressed by the new 94. It struck me as the perfect waist-width for everyday skiing in the West, where I live, and it was far more approachable than the 97 of the past. Like the 88, it was effortless to engage and released from the turn easily, thanks to a more forgiving tail. Its wood core was responsive and playful, while the metal layers absorbed all the vibration and gave it a plow-through-anything feel. This, I think, will be my new go-to this season. (They’re getting mounted at the shop as I type.)

Overall, I felt the entire line was equally if not more forgiving than previous iterations, and yet they were better able to handle eye-watering speed. Calmer, more stable and every bit as patient, the new Black Pearl is poised to stay on top.

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