The 6 best park skis of 2020

These twin-tip offerings are often below 100 millimeters in waist width and built with durable materials to withstand abuse from rails and other terrain park features. Flex patterns vary depending on intended use, but manufacturers put a premium on swing weight, to ensure nothing holds skiers back from spinning into the future.

1. Armada Edollo

Buy Now – $700

Back on top for the second year in a row—no surprise, here!—Armada and Henrik Harlaut’s Edollo continues its dominance amongst the park ranks. Renowned for its amazingly buttery, yet stable feel underfoot and characteristically ghoulish graphics, this pro model is built for maximum nose-pressabilty and ultimate stompability. A poplar-ash wood core gives this set of skis a lightweight, lively ride, but they’re reinforced with the thickest steel edges and most durable base materials in Armada’s tool kit, ensuring they’ll last, even if you bang ‘em up in the rail garden.

2. Armada ARV 96

Buy Now – $600

The ARV 96 maintains its place as a favorite thanks to its freestyle-focused profile, slew of mega-durable construction features, low swing weight and tried-and-true all-mountain performance. Here, the responsive poplar-ash core is shaped and pressed so there’s a slight positive camber underfoot along with rockered tips and tails, ensuring snappy turns and consistent edge contact whilst carving. Park skiers adore the fact that it’s amazingly easy to initiate butters and presses on the ARV 96, and that its topsheets are adorned with thought-provoking custom graphics by abstract artist Joram Rourkes.

3. Fischer Nightstick

Buy Now – $499.99

The Nightstick from Fischer is a FREESKIER favorite year after year for its predictable and sturdy, yet lightweight ride. The true symmetrical twin-tip is the narrowest in the category and it excels in manicured conditions—whether that’s a freshly-groomed jump line in the early morning or an impeccably-cut halfpipe wall. This set of skis ranked highest in carving and stability in this category, so you should feel confident railing lines from dawn till dusk, knowing you’ll have full control of your halfpipe transitions and landings on the biggest jumps you can find.

4. Armada BDog Edgeless

Buy Now – $600

Immediately adored by our testers, the BDog Edgeless is one of five pairs in Armada’s Zero Series, which serves as an incubator for athlete’s ideas. In this instance, FREESKIER’s Skier of the Year, Phil Casabon, a.k.a. “BDog,” requested that the metal edges of his skis be completely removed, allowing him to grease surfaces that don’t blend well with steel-edged skis. Taking it one step further, a poplar-ash core and specially-designed fiberglass layup provide a consistent, ultra-soft flex from tip to tail. The BDog Edgeless is engineered to maximize the rider’s creativity, and, in our opinion, marks the future of urban- and rail-focused skis.

5. J skis The Allplay

Buy Now – $599

The Allplay, from Jason Levinthal, is an annual contender in FREESKIER’s Park Test for its unbelievably playful ride. If you want to butter the lip off the money booter, swing an easy three or just add a bit more pop into your life, The Allplay needs to be your go-to pair of twigs. Designed with a multiple-radius sidecut to match its rocker-camber-rocker profile, these skis boast a maple wood core, pre-stretched carbon fiber stringers from tip-to-tail, adding rigidity, and full-height sidewalls that promote durability. Like all of J’s skis, you’ll be buying direct-to-consumer, which gives some added peace of mind when purchasing.

6. Liberty Helix 98

Buy Now – $600

One of the wider offerings in the park ski category, the high performance of Liberty’s Helix 98 begins with its naturally lightweight, springy bamboo-poplar wood core. Our testers raved about the ski’s swing weight, ranking it second-best in this category, showing that the balance of this ski carries from tip to tail, giving riders added confidence when flipping, spinning or transitioning between features. In sum, coming in at a versatile 98 millimeters underfoot, the Helix 98 offers a stable landing pad for bigger airs, but isn’t too bulky to use as a daily-driver in the terrain park.