Prior to last season, Fischer had subdivided its Ranger family of off-trail models into two distinct clans, indicated by their suffixes: Ti, for those with metal in the mix, and FR, for those without. Among Fischer aficionados, the softer and surfier Ranger FR models had a more distinct, looser character that distinguished them from the large cadre of all-mountain skis with metal in them. In the Realskiers scoring system, which favors snow connection over smearing, the Old School Ti models would consistently out-perform the New School FR’s, but it was clear from the tester comments that the Ranger FR’s had a bigger fan club.
Last season Fischer unveiled an entirely new Ranger series, ushered from the drawing board to the ski shop wall by none other than Mike Hattrup, who recently earned a well-merited induction into the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame. As one might expect from a mash-up of the old FR and Ti branches of the family, some of each genome is entwined in new models like the Ranger 96.
Like the Ti’s of yesteryear, there’s metal in the latest hybrid Rangers, just not as much as before. The metal is confined to the area underfoot, and while there are some changes in how the metal part is configured across the line, none possess enough Titanal to suppress the loose extremities that appealed to FR fans. Because the metal is mostly underfoot, the tip and tail feel lighter, easier to pivot sideways and generally more genial than a ski with tip-to-tail Ti laminates.
As is often the case, the metal plate in the middle extends its influence beyond its boundaries, so the Ranger 96 feels secure all along the tail. It’s interesting to note that despite being put on a Ti diet, the new Ranger 96 earned exactly the same score for power properties as the Ranger 99 Ti it replaces in the line, while its Finesse score went up. On balance, the 2024 hybrid Ranger behaves more like the FR side of its pedigree, albeit with a stouter tail that holds up under the sustained pressure of a long-radius turn.
Given that its double-rockered baseline is biased towards soft snow that gives the tip and tail something to push against, the Ranger 96 is more at home off-trail than on. Skiers who possess a more upright, centered stance may share the reaction of Peter Glenn’s Mark Rafferty, who pondered the question, “How can a ski be both playful and hard charging? Magic, I guess. But the Ranger 96 has all the carve that the Ranger series has been great at for years with an easy-going feel.”
Experts who are accustomed to driving into the tip of a race-bred ski may not adopt such a sanguine attitude. Bobo’s top technician, Theron Lee, whose low stance has been lifted from the slalom course, found that “The tip didn’t have a whole lotta reaction to it. I couldn’t drive it into the turn, which began from the mid-body. Made more for off-piste skiing, it had plenty of tip rocker, so it floated pretty well in this kind of cruddy, spring snow.”
While T Lee is doubtless correct that the Ranger 96 has a forebody built for off-trail travel, there’s equally no faulting its edge grip and stability from the mid-body to the tail, that even a skier as talented and strong as Jim Schaffner appreciates. “A big improvement over the Ranger 102 FR,” opines the Start Haus owner. “More predictable and higher stability. Still easy to drift and slarve, but with a much more consistent behavior on snow. This ski belongs in the group of versatile 90+ mm underfoot, as a one-ski quiver, Tahoe model.”