The Fischer Ranger 115 FR is an interesting amalgam of suppressed carving tendencies and overt desires to drift around every corner. Like any decent Powder ski, it’s first duty is to drift, but its ultralight Air Tec Ti core is sheathed in a sliver of Titanal, generating the security underfoot necessary to stay on course in heavy, cut-up crud. Despite its inherent prejudice for smearing, it’s on its best behavior when mimicking giant slalom technique through an open snowfield.
The one move it can’t copy is a short-radius, carved turn, a virtual impossibility given its front and rear rocker. This limited liability is shared by all Powder models, and is readily overcome by simply swiveling one’s feet. The Ranger 115 FR’s facility as a power drifter is further assisted by its Carbon Nose, which lowers swingweight, and its domed, Aeroshape top surface that slips sideways with silken ease.
Head did an amazing job of positioning its Kore series as “light done right,” catching the “Lighter is Better” wave with the right message at the right time. The brand’s focus on the light part of the story was so effective it overshadowed the real point of the slogan, the “done right” bit. What makes the Kore 117 isn’t that it’s ultralight – it’s not close to being the lightest in the Powder genre – but that it’s freakishly powerful.
The deeply tapered tip acts more like a bumper than an avid turn initiator and the rounded tail is intended to release the turn as if it were a wounded sparrow. Right underfoot the sidecut is fairly straight, so the center section can be foot-steered more easily. What keeps the Kore 117 on track in choppy chunder is its overall stiffness. Thanks to Graphene’s absurd strength to weight ratio, the Kore 117 can be as resistant to twisting and bending as Head’s engineers want it to be.
K2 flipped its entire freeride family this year, closing the Pinnacle period and beginning the Mindbender era. Mindbenders come in two flavors, with a Titanal yoke or a variable carbon weave as the principal structural component. Mindful of the need to keep fat skis on a diet, the Mindbender 116C is of the metal-free variety. The dip in torsional rigidity makes the Mindbender 116C feel narrower when it’s tipped and pressured, so traditional powder technique’s rhythmic turning style fits its strong suit.
But if you never attempt to stand on the edge, you can still smear your way along just by twisting your feet sideways. Not being as stiff or heavy as a Ti-laden model, the Mindbender 116C is easier to manhandle when necessary and never refuses an invitation to drift around a turn. As you’d expect from the Kings of Rocker at K2, the rocker at both tip and tail are long and high, creating a predisposition to bank off the base rather than carve on the edge.
To the degree that there’s a generational rift splitting the Powder category in two – Boomers still holding onto the idea that technical skiing can translate to bottomless snow, while Millennials’ idea of powder technique is to get airborne as often as possible – the Catamaran lands squarely (switch, of course) on the side of the kinder. The Catamaran’s signature asymmetric sidecut presumably helps keep this natural drifter from getting in its own way, but the forebody is so rockered the imbalance between inside and outside effective edge length is disguised.
The Catamaran’s tail is also rockered, but not to the point where it can’t support someone tossing a gainer into a couloir. This is, after all, an athlete-driven ski, with Sean Pettit and Pep Fujas lending their street cred to its popularity. How well what they regard as de rigeur is adapted to your personal, inimitable style, I leave entirely up to you.
Most powder skis are made for those who either don’t ski powder so well or those who ski it so well they need a crazy-wide ski to make their living. The Nordica Enforcer 115 Free leans towards those of elite ability who point their skis downhill a lot more than they turn them sideways. It takes an aggressive attitude to pilot this ski because its long turn radius and extra length (note it only comes in a 191cm) need speed to turn these traits from liabilities to assets. If you like to tiptoe through the trees or make tidy, little turns to control your speed, you are reading the wrong review.
The reason the Enforcer 115 Free skis like a GS race ski in a fat suit is because it’s still a wood and metal ski, with two sheets of .4mm Titanal to give this big board the power of plutonium. Were it to depend on fiberglass for its liveliness, it would weigh as much as the Queen Mary; the switch from glass to carbon is what enables Nordica to retain the Ti laminates and the special stability at speed that they confer.
