Fischer ought to have the inside track on creating a women’s ski due to its preeminence in the cross-country market, where the Austrian brand has devoted decades of diligent R&D to creating the lightest possible wood core. The solution many Alpine brands choose is to switch out heavier woods for poplar, Paulownia, bamboo or foam. Fischer starts with raw lumber and mills it out in a pattern that remains structurally sound but cuts away 25% of the material used in a solid core.

As is universally the case among high-end skis with a low-mass objective, carbon plays a key role in keeping the My Pro MT 86 light, agile and responsive. To reinforce edging power without resorting to Titanal, the My Pro MT 86 uses square sidewalls for crisp energy transfer. Its most obvious effort at trimming mass is also so subtle it may pass notice: the top corners of what would normally be a rectangular ski have been lopped off, so there’s simply less there there, as Gertrude Stein might have said. (Ten points to whomever gets this oblique reference.) The thinner edge this creates slices more easily into the clumpy snow it’s likely to encounter off-trail.