The Volkl Yumi has been around for a little while now, although it received a significant update in construction and some tweaks to its shape for 2018. For 2019 it is carried forward with the same design and construction, but a new top sheet that works with the other skis in the Volkl all mountain collection: the Secret, Kenja, and new Kama. The Yumi has an 84 mm waist width, slight rocker in the tips and tails, and some subtle early taper as well. It uses Volkl’s Multi-Layer Wood Core and also uses Titanal Band, the single strip of metal running through the center of the ski that we also see in the men’s Kanjo and Confession. The idea is to retain some of the performance benefits of metal (vibration damping, stability, power, etc.), but allows Volkl to achieve a significantly lighter weight, a full 340 g lighter than its “bigger” sister, the Kenja.
Jenny Lawson was on the 161 cm length and really enjoyed skiing the Yumi. She was impressed by its intuitive feel and also gave it really high test scores across the board. The lowest score she gave the Yumi was a 4 out of 5 for stability, which makes sense considering the Titanal Band construction does reduce the amount of metal in the ski fairly significantly. Jenny described it as, “easy, fun, and playful.” She went on to say, “I felt like it skied for me. I thought, ‘turn,’ and it turned. Snappy and no work necessary, yet it felt like if I put some speed into it, it was willing to work. Jenny thought it would be perfect for an intermediate or advanced skier, which is about how we would describe Jenny, so it’s no surprise she liked it.
Katrine Wolfgang skied the longer length, the 168 cm, but she agreed with Jenny. She described it as a good ski for intermediate to advanced skiers. Katrine actually gave the Yumi 5 out of 5 for stability, so don’t shy away from it if you’re worried it won’t be stable enough for you. There’s a good chance it will accommodate you, unless you’re very aggressive. Katrine also described it as playful and thought it “turned well,” which goes along with Jenny’s feedback about it turning very easily and intuitively.
Ali Berlin was most impressed by the ski’s lightweight feel and playful nature. She gave the Yumi the highest marks for quickness, playfulness, and forgiveness. She also described it as a “lightweight ski,” but also said that they “skied well in the chunky snow,” so she didn’t find them too unstable to ski through variable snow conditions. Ali also commented on the ski’s willingness to turn, saying that, “they responded well to changes in turn radius and could handle high speeds without losing edge hold.” So, although Ali focused her scores mostly on quickness and playfulness, she still found the ski to have enough torsional stiffness to hold an edge at speed. Ali was skiing the 161 cm length.
Susan Dorn also skied the 161 cm and really fell in love with the Yumi. She gave it 5 out of 5 for stability, forgiveness, and torsional stiffness, with all the other categories receiving high scores as well. Susan called it a, “great ski,” and went on to describe it as, “sufficiently damp, making crud a non-issue. Good for tired legs or all day, day after day skiing. Easy to turn, good edge to edge feel, peppy. It lacked a little bit of power, but not missed.” We think that’s a great way to describe the Yumi.
For intermediate and advanced skiers who value quickness and playfulness, but don’t want to completely sacrifice edge grip and stability, the Yumi provides a great option. It’s a high performance all mountain ski, but it’s a little bit more user-friendly than similar all mountain skis with two sheets of metal.
