2021 Nordica Enforcer 88

When Nordica introduced the original Enforcer five years ago, it already had a 100mm-underfoot model in its line, the NRGy100, and the more acutely rockered Enforcer could have been misconstrued as redundant. Yet the Enforcer immediately earned a name for itself as a new breed of all-terrain ski that disguised a fully cambered baseline – and all the power it entails – between rockered extremities. As the Enforcer family grew, first wider, then skinnier, the arrival of an Enforcer 88 became inevitable. Now that the long and winding road between the first Enforcer and the last has reached its destination, one can only wonder, what took them so long? This ski is a marvel, stable enough to navigate scoured wind crust yet ready to pounce turn to turn on hardpack with barely a transition between the two contrary conditions. Its score for short-radius turns is off the charts, yet it can lay into a big-bellied arc as comfortably as a cat curling up on a sofa. True to its bloodlines, the Enforcer 88 sports a tip and tail that go looking for trouble off-trail just so they can demonstrate how well they can handle it. The tip is rockered sharply enough to go over a stump and the rounded tail won’t get up hung up in oddball bumps. But the real magic lies in the middle, where the Enforcer 88’s long camber pocket percolates with understated power. If you set off a rhythm of staccato edge sets you’ll find out what I mean as it ping-ping-pings from turn to turn.