What makes a good crud buster ski???

 out of all the skis i've owned over the past 5 seasons (Mantra, Karma, No Ka Oi, King Salmon, Lib Tech NAS Freeride, Titan 9) the only one i can say wholeheartedly was a serious crud basher was the Mantra. that thing absolutely killed it in chopped up, manky snow.

that said, i have to agree with Mr. Peters, in that it's largely about technique. if your'e really a strong, proficient skier, then you can ski all conditions on any kind of plank (i have witnessed this time and time again, most recently this past spring at Sugarbowl when taking a free lesson and the instructor absolutely killed everything that was thrown our way on the mountain and he was on some skinny-ass Rossi race skis).

at any rate, i had been repeatedly told much of what Bob mentioned--about driving through the crud and that heel pressure and any kind of backseat action will foul you up. that's the truth. i found this past spring that if i drove the tips and really aggressively attacked the crud, it greatly improved my chances of "floating" or at least breaking through the crud. what's more is that by attacking it didn't matter that the ski i was on was slightly noodled (i did most of my 2008/2009 crud skiing on a pair of severely used Lib Techs). granted, a stiffer tip would have helped, but employing even the crudest attempts of the techniques that Bob revealed totally improved my crud busting ability.

so, i'll have to agree that it's largely your skill and the skis only accentuate (or deter) from that. 

You could ask the skier that can shred crud with a carver 5 Star or  a stiff powder (Mantra, LP, Squad, etc) to where you can't tell which he did better with, which ski does he have more fun on and it would clearly be the crud-capable metal sandwich.

Best ski for set-up crud I've ever been on. Unfortunately, far from the best powder ski. It's true that places like Alta can get cut up pretty fast, but that's not "set-up" crud and is easily skiable with whatever ski you ski deep powder with. I really see no need to compromise the pow/crud performance on a powder day. Look at it this way: What kind of snow are you most looking forward to skiing?

+1, adding that strong legs in a solid stands don't get tossed around by snow/ice chunks much as weak ones do.  Same is true of skis.  I prefer stiffer skis on crud.

When I first started to sellect skis for a hard snow/soft snow quiver, I thought: do I want my next wide ski to help with difficulty in the toughest conditions that I face, or do I want the next ski to maximize the enjoyment I get from my favorite snow conditions. (adding to the forula that deep perfect powder is easy to ski with anything, 95+, just cause powder is easy to begin with) I ended up compromising: the crud ski is used for powder this year again, but not next year!

 general design observation: fun powder ski=wood and fiberglass;  powerful crud ski=metal sandwich. (S7 and hybrids seem to mix and match within one ski).