Mountain Touring Adventure

Black Crows Navis Freebird - Review 2026

By: Derek Doyle & Annie Gunton - Updated: April 2025

About this guide

We gave our Gear Lovers one job:
Find the best and most popular products and review them.

Our review team always considers durability, price, quality, and value in their reviews.

Our review team:

Derek Doyle

Contributor at SlopeMagazine.com

Hailing from Aspen, Colorado, Derek began his skiing career in the illustrious Powder Pandas ski school program, eventually sort of growing up to ski professionally in slopestyle and big air, while moonlighting as a ski tuner and writer.

Now living in Colorado’s front range, Derek can be found among the i70 crowd racing to find hidden powder stashes on the back bowls of Vail, on Park Lane in Breckenridge, under the lights on Keystone, and returning home to the High Alpine steeps in Snowmass. When he's not skiing he’s wishing he was, or nerding out on mountain biking, climbing, and golf.

Annie Gunton

Editor at SlopeMagazine.com

Annie has lived on 4 continents and traveled through 6. Spending her time in places as different as London and the Kalahari she has adapted how she gets out and enjoys what’s around.

Disclosure: We are reader supported, and earn affiliate commissions If you find a good deal on Slope Magazine, you click to the retailer, and you buy the product, we get a commission of the sale. That's how we pay ourselves. It does not make the product pricier for you. when you buy through us.

Where to buy Black Crows Navis Freebird:

Backcountry

Evo

The 2024 Black Crows Navis Freebird is a slightly tweaked, lighter version of the iconic Navis adventure touring ski that sets its sights anywhere from inbounds cruising to backcountry bliss. Now, the Navis Freebird is geared slightly more towards intermediate backcountry skiers, but their lightweight design will appeal to experts too.

The highlights for the Navis Freebird include a nimble 102mm waist, a rockered tip and tail for quick pivoting and float, and an underfoot camber that holds the ski’s edge really well and helps to keep skins gripped to the ski’s base. The construction features a familiar and poppy paulownia wood core paired with a titanal plate to help with dampening and retention. The versatile 19m turn radius makes these super fun in the trees and surprisingly good on groomers.

Where they really shine is on both the ascent and descent in the backcountry. Even decent climbers can cruise uphill without the extra weight of other skis in this category, and they hold an edge through hard crusty snow while offering enough float in deep, fresh conditions. If you’re skinning up, the lighter weight can feel a bit sketchy, but I’ll take less weight going up any day.