American skiers have been conditioned to think that a true all-terrain ski has to be at least 90mm underfoot, with an amply rockered baseline. Skinnier skis are fine for manicured groomers, but as soon as the surface devolves into a disheveled mess, it’s time to climb on a broader board.

As I’ve made a living divining the differences between one ski genre and another, it would be disingenuous at best to now claim that we don’t need as many categories as the market has chosen to populate. The new Völkl Peregrine 82 makes a strong case that the best Frontside skis shouldn’t be confined to the tireless tedium of carving up corduroy; they can handle whatever the backside of the mountain has to dish out.

My first foray on the Peregrine 82 covered a lot of ground at Palisades Tahoe, beginning with the genre-appropriate terrain of Shirley Lake. I’ve watched Michaela train on this suite of consistently pitched slopes, which is all the validation I need that it’s primo testing terrain. The Peregrine 82 reacted to its partially tracked playground by seeking out the largest untrammeled pockets and slicing them into neat rows, bringing precision to the off-piste milieu.

It was a powder morning, so it wasn’t long before the siren call of the adjacent Granite Chief lift pulled me into its orbit. On the Chief’s multi-faceted fall lines, the snow can vary from fluff to Marshmallow Fluff^®. The Peregrine 82 could have cared less. Sure, in heavier snow I shifted my weight more over my arch rather than biased to the ball of my foot, but that was the extent of my accommodations for the Peregrine 82’s bullet-shaped silhouette motoring through a stiffening snowpack.

After a few exploratory routes through Granite Chief’s wilderness, I headed over to the other side of Palisades and the well-travelled bumps of Headwall. The Peregrine 82 practically purred, smoothing a line through troughs that would have been murder to navigate on a fat ski. I was beginning to wonder, what snow condition wouldn’t be fun to navigate on this slender arrow of a ski?

I would have another shot at locating the limits of the Peregrine 82’s performance later that week at Mt. Rose, when the weather was in a foul mood. Piercing wind, bitter cold and medium-density fog made it hard to discern what lay just ahead, be it a wind drift or a patch of scorched boilerplate. Mercifully, the Peregrine 82 rolled through it all unperturbed, as if to say, “That all you got?”  It’s built-in carving capabilities rose to the occasion on every surface, whether skied from an upright stance or more laid-over.  If you want to ping through a zipper line or slice Super-G size arcs on a corduroy ballroom, the Peregrine 82 is ready when you are.

There are reasons why this ski is so good.  A ski can only do what its design allows. As is often the case with people, a good deal of the Peregrine 82’s brilliance is due to its genetic make-up; the Deacon 84 that preceded it in the Völkl line already used 3D Radius, Titanal Frame and its secret sauce, 3D Glass. All the hoopla about Titanal Frame is well deserved, but the 3D Glass design is every bit as clever. The bottom glass laminate runs up and over the sidewall, creating a lip that connects with a glass top sheet to create a torsion box.  The 3-piece Titanal Frame allows the ski to bend more readily under a centered load, but it’s the 3D Glass torsion box that stores all this energy like a giant spring that instantly pops back into position.

There are two on-snow traits that elevate the Peregrine 82 from the rest of the field: one is the rebound energy I just described, and the other is the turn shape versatility inherent in its 3D Radius Sidecut, which essentially harbors a short-radius capability inside a long-radius chassis. Consider for a moment the ways the Peregrine 82’s construction defies conventional wisdom:

• Most brands are focused on reducing swingweight by making the extremities lighter than the center; Völkl basically does the opposite, using thicker Titanal parts at tip and tail, and a much thinner, free-floating section in the middle.
• Many brands have reduced the amount of wood in their cores or switched to much lighter woods when they use wood at all. Völkl prefers heftier ash, because it skis better, period.
• Legitimate environmental concerns have inspired many brands to reduce the role of fiberglass, with its attendant resins and glues, but Völkl uses 100% renewable electric power – among many other eco-friendly initiatives – that more than off-set the carbon impact of its materials choices.

There are three key design features that are new to the Peregrine 82 (compared to the Deacon 84): Tailored Titanal Frame, Tailored Carbon Tips and the shape of the sidecut.  All are consequential. Tailored Titanal Frame adjusts the size of the stirrup of alu alloy that wraps around the shovel, so an over-sized part won’t overwhelm a smaller chassis. To create the optimum vibration muffler where the ski receives its biggest shock, Völkl had to create its own carbon fiber weave. Völkl R&D tested hundreds of possible patterns of Tailored Carbon Tips to find just the right amount of damping to keep the forebody quiet at 40 mph.  The more slender silhouette of the Peregrine 82 footprint provides an agility and early turn initiation that impart confidence at any speed.

The only thing the Peregrine 82 can’t do is float through knee-deep powder. Big deal; any ski over 100mm underfoot can fill that bill. Finding a ski that will do everything else at an elite level is relatively rare. If you can only have a two-ski quiver, one of those skis should be the Peregrine 82.