Its focus on ease and maneuverability in the rough and tumble of off-trail conditions disguises the power the FulLUVit holds in reserve. Kelli Gleason, who tears up Telluride when not taking care of business at Boot Doctors, assures us, “it still holds at Mach 9.” For its kindness to women who aren’t looking to crack the Mach scale ceiling, we award the FulLUVit 95 a Silver Skier Selection.
The Enforcer’s on edge authority derives from a no nonsense construction – all wood core filling in a metal sandwich – applied to a cambered baseline. It’s the shape of this baseline that’s the Enforcer’s special sauce: the forward contact point is pulled back 25% from the tip and the rear contact retreats 5% along the tail. While the rockered areas are pronounced, they are relatively low-angle so that any act of tipping and pressuring is sufficient to put the extremities back in snow contact. A blunt, low-profile “Hammerhead” shovel design keeps the tip closer to the surface, thereby reducing tip flap on hard snow.
The Kästle FX95 HP isn’t just an all-terrain, all-condition ski; it’s also an all-attitude ski. This odd elocution means that the FX95 HP doesn’t care if your style is docile or dominating, the FX95 HP is going to hold on to every medium-to-long radius arc as if the fate of Austria hung in the balance.
There is one caveat: it helps to go lickety split . This is never more true than in still-crystalline, crisscrossed crud, when the Dual Rise baseline of the FX95 HP feels most appreciated as an aid to maneuverability over and around submerged obstacles. The trade-off is that its rockered tip and tail feel less motivated when confronted with crystalline groomage. Because of its two layers of Titanal, the FX95 HP never feels unstable at speed, but its baseline unquestionably favors variable terrain as long as it’s not the consistency of haggis.
Over the unusually long arc of its existence, the Mantra has morphed every few seasons, putting on a few mm’s of girth one year, adding a dab of early rise to the tip another. The latest stage in its evolution, which debuted two seasons ago, was also the most dramatic, resulting in a significant change in the Mantra’s personality.
Völkl didn’t change the Mantra’s composition – it’s still a classic combo of wood and Titanal – but they changed everything else, going from a fully cambered ski to a double rocker design that is bone-flat underfoot and rockered at tip and tail. The alterations allow the new Mantra to swivel around in soft snow, making it much more forgiving in the off-piste conditions. The premium previously placed on pilot proficiency and precision no longer pertains.