Last year Völkl added 3D.Glass to 3D.Ridge and a perfect union was formed. 3D. Glass consists of a full-length bottom sheet of prepreg glass with flaps in the middle that run up and over the sidewall, anchoring the laminate to the 3D.Ridge and completing what amounts to a fiberglass torsion box. The transformation couldn’t be more dramatic, like the nerd in high school who overnight evolves into a rock star.

The 100 Eight’s fully rockered baseline didn’t change, but 3D.Glass gives it bite previously missing from its resume. Because of fiberglass’s springy reaction to compression, 3D.Glass supercharges the bottom of the turn. As useful as this trait is on groomers, it’s even more fun to exploit in powder. Once the skier loads the ski in the belly of the turn, all that stored energy in the glass lifts the skier back toward the surface and a turn transition that feels more lilting than laborious.

Once all the freshies have been riven into tatters, the extra stability and oomph of 3D.Glass give the 100 Eight the muscle to win the slugfest with crud. “A fun, playful ski,” writes Jan’s Jack Walzer. “Great in soft snow. Very lively.” Olin Glenne from Sturtevant’s also uses the f-word to describe the pep in the 100 Eight: “Super fun edge to edge. Ski it everywhere,” he advises. The cumulative impression of our panel is that the current 100 Eight possesses equal amounts of opposing traits, as it manages to be simultaneously stable and agile. You couldn’t ask for a better combo in a Big Mountain ski.