The BMT 90 is part of Volkl’s touring collection and is a lightweight all mountain ski designed to go uphill as efficiently and effectively as it goes downhill. It’s built with Volkl’s 3D.Ridge construction and uses a whole bunch of carbon fiber to achieve a solid, stable feel without excessive weight. The BMT 90 is best suited to mount with alpine touring bindings, and arguably tech-fit bindings would be most appropriate and would utilize the light weight of the ski to the maximum. Volkl has pretty much thought of everything when it comes to the design of the BMT 90. It has an integrated SkinPin attachment system, an Ice-Off topsheet that eliminates snow buildup on your skis, and borrows performance oriented design elements from all mountain skis like the Kendo and 90Eight.
In fact, Marcus Shakun refers to the BMT 90 as a “lightweight uphill Kendo” and it’s no mystery why. The ski has a very similar turn radius and an identical waist width, but is over 500 g lighter than the Kendo. Marcus, along with the rest of our testers, skied the 177 cm length. He describes the BMT 90 as being a ski for “advanced intermediate to expert skiers who want a light ski for uphill use.” If you’re not planning on touring on the BMT 90 there really are better skis within the Volkl line, like the 90Eight for example. If you are using them at AT skis, however, they’re pretty much perfect. While the 90 mm isn’t really powder-ski-width, it still performs great in soft snow. According to Marcus the BMT 90 is “really best in soft snow” where it likes to “make short to medium radius turns.” Because it’s relatively light it’s “not for high speed hard-snow conditions” where it can feel a touch “unstable.”
Hard charging through hard snow conditions really isn’t what the BMT 90 is intended for. It’s designed to be light and quick, which it certainly is. Bob St. Pierre really appreciated the weight and maneuverability of the ski. He commented that they feel “very light and maneuverable” and are “super quick edge to edge.” It’s no surprise why Bob gave the BMT 90 5 out of 5 for quickness and maneuverability. He went on to describe more in-depth what the BMT 90 is all about: “Lively, fun, yet stable enough given the light weight. Not quite enough ski for daily use, but good all-around performance on and off trail and would be an excellent touring ski.”
Steve Sulin describes them as “nimble”, which makes a lot of sense considering their weight and tip and tail rocker. They’re like a little ninja of a ski. Steve agreed with Marcus in the sense that the BMT prefers “medium to short radius turns.” This is a confidence inspiring performance characteristic, especially when you’re skiing variable, tricky terrain in the backcountry. Sure, when we think of alpine touring it’s easy for our minds to gravitate to powder skiing, but there’s not always soft snow out there. While really deep days might call for a wider ski, the BMT 90 is a great choice when there are variable snow depths, wind-buffed conditions, refrozen snow, or anything else that’s less perfect than untouched powder.
As we mentioned in the opening paragraph the BMT 90 is really best suited for alpine touring, although if you want a really lightweight all mountain ski it could act as your resort ski. We do think most skiers will benefit from a slightly heavier ski as their resort all mountain ski, but the BMT 90 could be really fun for those that like to seek out sidecountry terrain, hike-to zones, and other “backcountry” style terrain at their local ski hill.
