The Lightest Ski Mountaineering and Ski Touring Skis in the World from Moonlight Mountain Gear

Out of nowhere and out of Norway comes a little known ski brand that is manufacturering a line of arguably the lightest skis in the world! Their ski weights either beat or match the lightest skis from established brands like Movement, La Sportiva or SkiTrab.
I didn’t know about Moonlight Mountain Gear until recently so I made sure to visit their booth at the recent 2018 ISPO show in Munich where they also won an award for their Eagle Carbon Race ski.
The company’s headquarters are in a small town of Burfjord in the very northern part of Norway.

Moonlight Skis

While Moonlight makes visually two very distinct lines of skis – Carbon and Carbon Race – the focus in both is on delivering the best performance through using latest high tech light-weight materials as well as some nature’s lightest woods.
The core of Moonlight skis is a blend of hybrid foam, Formula 1 graded carbon and company’s unique torsion box. For such low weights, this combination makes their skis feel quite stiff torsionally as well as strong overall – these were my impressions while flexing their skis at the show.
While “stiff” skis are desired in some conditions but not in others, Moonlight played with the shape of the skis to find the right balance. The stiffness should definitely help with edge hold in hard or icy conditions as their “LL Rocker System” (tip and tail rocker with some camber in the middle) should take care of easy floating in powder.

Carbon vs Carbon Race

The two Moonlight lines mainly differ in the ski core construction, which creates the differences in weight, and the topsheet design. Otherwise, skis in both lines share the same dimensions and shape.
Let’s take a closer look and compare each pairing in two lengths.

All Mountain Carbon vs All Mountain Carbon Race:

The Carbon model (fun topsheet) was designed for big mountains and to ski all types of snow, while the Carbon Race (black topsheet) is one of the worlds lightest big mountain ski made to cruise in softer snow. We see both as great big powder days skis.
Different weights but same dimensions for both models:
179 cm | 132-106-121 with 26 m radius | 1390 g and 1090 g
169 cm | 129-103-118 with 26 m radius | 1220 g and 990 g

Eagle Carbon vs Eagle Carbon Race:

The beautiful Eagle Carbon is intended as “do it all” ski to perform well on and off-piste, while the Race version won 2018 ISPO Award and is a super light ski touring machine. Given their dimensions, both skis would be great “daily drivers” for western Canada and US snowpack with the added featherweight benefit.
Different weights but same dimensions for both models:
177 cm | 130-95-120 with 20 m radius | 1350 g and 1040 g
166 cm | 127-92-117 with 20 m radius | 1190 g and 960 g

Northern Light Carbon vs Northern Light Carbon Race:

Both models are light-weight speed touring and mountaineering skis for long days in the mountains. Plus, the Race version is the lightest ski in the world in its size. These should be the right tools for big ski mountaineering missions and spring skiing conditions.
Different weights but same dimensions for both models:
174 cm | 110-84-99 with 23 m radius | 1100 g and 900 g
164 cm | 107-81-96 with 23 m radius | 960 g and 700 g

The Race 160 and 166:

And here’s the insanity for skimo racing enthusiasts. Moonlight went so far with the Race 160 skis that you have to mount it with a heavy binding to make it ISMF race legal 🙂
ISMF weight limit for men for ski + binding combo is 750 g. To fix this “mistake” they went back to a drawing board and managed to add 100 grams through fattening the ski a little.
166 cm | 95-70-85 with 26 m radius | 675 g
160 cm | 90-65-80 with 24 m radius | 570 g

Where Can I Get a Pair?

There aren’t many stores that stock Moonlight skis even in Europe as the brand is still very young so your best bet is to visit their website – www.moonlightmountaingear.com/en – and get your favourite pair directly from the weight obsessed Norwegians themselves.