It’s not entirely coincidental that the Santa Ana 98 debuted last season along with Terrain Specific Metal, Nordica’s way of doling out just the right amount of metal for each of its five Santa Ana models. The Santa Ana 98 was needed because its predecessor, the Santa Ana 100, used wall-to-wall, end-to-end sheets of Titanal, so they skied like supercharged rockets. Skiers who just wanted a ski to make powder easier were over-served.
So, unlike its sister Santa Anas, the 98 was born on a Ti diet, but just because the Santa Ana 98 doesn’t ski like an Enforcer 100, don’t think for a second that it’s been gutted. Within the Santa Ana clan, the 98 falls on the side of the threesome that are intended to live at least part of their lives on hard snow. It wasn’t created to ski powder at the expense of competence when carving up groomers; it’s meant to live comfortably on the border of both worlds.
Every ski in this genre alleges that it’s like the mythical Super Mom who can manage the boardroom, the boudoir and the household books while learning Mandarin. They can do it all and never break a sweat. But Women’s All-Mountain West skis almost never live right on the 50/50, hard snow/soft snow border.
Last season, K2 athlete McKenna Peterson shared this glimpse behind the ski development curtain at K2:
The creation of the Mindbender line was an opportunity for K2 to completely revamp its women’s freeride skis. We started with a conference call between K2 engineers, product managers, K2’s female athletes and K2’s women’s test team. We each stated what our ‘ideal’ line of skis would look like and the engineers started innovating. Throughout that winter, the women’s test team completed 5 tests at different ski resorts, in varying conditions. Some models, like the 88Ti, skied really well right out of the gate and we only tested those prototype variations at two of the tests. Other models were tested over and over again until the ski was perfect.
The first time I skied on what is now the Mindbender 98Ti Alliance was during our second round of testing at Crystal Mountain, Washington. It had snowed a bit up high but had rained down low on the mountain so conditions were variable. I’m a big mountain skier and have always preferred fatter skis for float and stability at speed, but there was something about this 98mm underfoot ski that made my jaw drop. Up high, the 98Ti floated through the powder, perfectly balanced between riding on top and diving too deep. The ski carved through the nasty re-frozen wet snow of the lower mountain as if it were butter. The ski was both confident and playful. We had a winner.
The M-Pro line that Dynastar introduced last year is hierarchical, with the M-Pro 99 and 99 W sitting on top of a 3-model range. This means the M-Pro 99 W isn’t just the widest ski in the range, it’s the also the best. Women who’ve attained advanced ability should probably on the M-Pro 99 W even if they’re likely to spend half their time on groomed terrain.
I make this suggestion despite the fact that the M-Pro 99 W’s baseline and build are clearly intended for off-piste terrain. It’s topsheet of Titanal peters out about half way up the forebody so the front of the ski stays loose and free to conform to uneven conditions. It’s the Ti in the mid-section and tail that calm the M-Pro 99 W down on groomers, earning the admiration of Lara Hughes Allen, who filed this dispatch: “I really liked this ski. I don’t usually ski anything much over 90 underfoot, but I was really impressed with this ski on groomers and off piste. I skied it on a day where we had gotten about a foot of new snow over crud/ice and it had a lot of float through the soft snow, but also charged through the crud. Surprisingly grippy on the groomers as well.” Meghan Ochs agreed that it “performs well in all categories despite the rockered tip.”
Head’s Kore series provides a perfect example of why a great off-trail ski and an ideal women’s ski share the same design criteria. For 21/22, the changes made to the unisex Kore collection were ipso facto applied to its women’s iterations. The same alterations that make the new Kore 99 a better all-terrain ski also make the Kore 97 W a better women’s ski.
The most visible change is to the topsheet, which is now smoothly beveled so the ski slips sideways virtually without resistance, a big help when the snow is deep. Inside, the Kore’s core was modified by eliminating Koroyd honeycomb and replacing it with more of its Karuba-poplar wood core. This delivers a subtle change in snow feel and feedback that makes the ride feel smoother and more predictable. The only thing the skier notices about the lightweight design is that it takes less effort to steer; there’s no sense of it being skittish or easily knocked off course just because it’s light.
This year, Kästle completely redesigned its off-trail FX series, returning to a metal laminate construction. Kästle’s FX96 Women, however, wasn’t part of this transformation, returning to the line where it first debuted in the 2019/20 season.
The cornerstone of the FX96 W design is a poplar and beech wood core inside a fiberglass torsion box that is itself encased in a laminate, with poplar and Paulownia bookending the central core. The torsion box rides higher than the outer sections, creating a 3D top surface, which is the first weight-saver. Second is the concentration of hard woods in the center, so lighter woods can be used in the remaining 2/3 of the core. Third is using a thicker core profile in the central torsion box, which gives it more power without adding more materials.
The proof of the FX96 W’s terrain proclivities is found in its double-rockered baseline. Its shallow camber pocket transitions to a long, gradual front rocker – Kästle refers to it as Progressive Rise – that starts 310cm from the tip. The tail rocker picks up and a similarly slight slope 150cm from the tail. This creates a relatively short contact length that works in concert with its slalomesque sidecut (14m @ 164cm) to create a fat ski that skis skinny.
