If some ski model census taker added up all the iterations of the Völkl Mantra sold since its inception, the sum should show the Mantra to be the most popular All-Mountain West ski of the last decade.

Over the unusually long arc of its existence, the Mantra has morphed every few seasons, putting on a few mm’s of girth one year, adding a dab of early rise to the tip another. The latest stage in its evolution, which debuted three seasons ago, was also the most dramatic, resulting in a significant change in the Mantra’s personality.

Völkl didn’t change the Mantra’s composition – it’s still a classic combo of wood and Titanal – but it changed everything else, transforming it from a fully cambered ski to a fully rockered design that is bone-flat underfoot and rockered at tip and tail. The alterations allow the latest Mantra to swivel around in soft snow, making it much more forgiving in off-piste conditions.

One characteristic the Mantra has retained in all its incarnations, including the current one, is ironclad edge grip underfoot. Like any torsionally rigid, 100mm-wide ski, the Mantra isn’t whippet-quick edge to edge, but testers are nearly unanimous in acknowledging that once on edge it carves big, accurate arcs, even on hard snow.