Being based in Verbier, Faction's roots are embedded deeply in freeride culture and the Swiss manufacturer seems to have pulled off a bit of a coup with its brand-new Prime series.
The design has clearly been helped by having Freeride World Tour stalwart and all-round gnarly alpinist Sam Anthamatten involved in the process and the results are clear to see.
Straight out of the rack it's hard not to start a man-crush on the 3.0s, which have a gorgeous white/grey/green top sheet with an eye-catching diamond-chequer pattern beneath.
It isn't all form over substance though, as the 'chequer' you can see is the TeXtreme carbon weave across the length of the skis that's thinner yet stronger than regular carbon construction.
A hybrid balsa/flax core continues the weight-saving crusade, but there's still room for a top notch sandwich sidewall construction and titanal reinforcement underfoot. Unusually the tails have a little more rocker than the tips, with just a smidgen of camber underfoot.
What you end up with are 108mm wide skis that weigh just 1740g each (before you slap on some bindings), are super responsive, yet by some strange alchemy are strong and beefy.
Match them with touring bindings and skins to glide uphill, before conquering everything you meet going downhill.
