Little Liberty first popped up on my radar when they introduced a stellar new technology I hadn’t seen before: instead of using flat sheets of Titanal in the horizontal plane, Liberty inserted a vertical aluminum spine running the length of the ski. The year was 2018, the same year Rossi launched Line Control Technology and Blizzard introduced Carbon Spine, both of which also featured a central, vertical strut. Liberty’s Vertical Metal Technology (VMT) embarrassed the big boys, keeping the 3 V-Series models that used it pinned to the snow. It was a stunning debut.
This year, VMT as we knew it is gone, replaced with Variable Metal Technology in a new, 3-model series, the Radian 92 and 100 for men and a women’s model, the Horizon 92. The new VMT consists of a single, horizontal laminate that is tapered at both ends, so the tip and tail are looser and therefore better suited to irregular, off-trail conditions. (That was one of the problems with Vertical Metal Tech; it was too good at nailing the full length of the ski to the snow surface.)
Liberty calls the niche category to which the Radians and Horizon belong, “Precision-Guided Directional Freeride,” which sounds a bit contrived, but it’s actually a succinct summation of their essential character. These aren’t goofy twin-tips or loosey-goosey barges, but they are meant for Freeride terrain, i.e., anything but groomers. It’s what skiers with refined Frontside skills would prefer to take off-trail. They’re able to translate technical skills into effortless off-road skiing by constructing an off-trail shape and baseline and filling it with on-trail innards.
Jim Schaffner, whose knowledge of the state of the art in ski technology borders on the encyclopedic, calls the Radian 100, “An impressive entry in the 100mm-waist width category. This ski has a very stuck to the snow feel that is confidence-inducing in terms of speed control and resisting the earth’s gravitational pull while turning. Very predictable and at the same time versatile in turn shape and speeds.”
The new Nordica Enforcer 99 isn’t up to the standard of last year’s Enforcer 100; it exceeds it.
I hesitate to call it a completely different ski, for it still rewards a strong, technical skier, but there’s a newfound smoothness through every phase of the turn, whether on groomers or in a foot of fresh. I had the idyllic opportunity to catch my first runs on the Enforcer 99 early in the morning on the first day of the Mammoth Trade Fair in early February. The main runs were already riven with tracks, but the Enforcer 99 made the ride feel satin smooth. Crud is a dish best served with speed, which made the Enforcer 99 even more responsive. The longer, shallower tip rocker did a masterful job of clobbering crud with a minimum of deflection, and the more turned-up tail – a design feature borrowed from the Enforcer 104 – let go of each turn like it was releasing a fledgling bird.
Nordica completely rebuilt this ski with a new Double Core design purloined from its technical skis, the powerful Dobermanns and Spitfires. Two sheets of end-to-end Titanal are sandwiched around both a wood core and a Pulse core, made from a shock-sucking elastomer. The is the foundation of the strong edge grip and unruffled ride the Enforcer 99 displays in all conditions.
The second time I forayed out on the Enforcer 99 I wasn’t alone. With me was Jim Schaffner, probably the world’s foremost authority on Alpine ski boots who doesn’t work for a ski supplier, and a top-notch coach. He’s also as strong physically as he is technically, so he’s an excellent ski analyst. He doesn’t hurt that his enthusiasm for the sport is bottomless.
Schaffner’s capsule report on how the Enforcer 99 handled a boot-top snowfall at Palisades Tahoe suggests a ski with a broad performance envelope. “Perfect sweet spot!!! So well balanced in fore/aft position. An excellent execution of an all-mountain tool.”
Just two years ago, Head invigorated its Kore series by making a handful of product changes that palpably improved every Kore model’s performance. You’d think the Austrian brand would have rested on its considerable laurels, but the following year it elected to add a urethane topcoat – like frosting on the proverbial cake – to help protect the top and sides from nicks and scratches. Lo, and behold, the addition of an end-to-end dampening layer gave the new Kores a little extra cush to their ski/snow connection, smoothing out the ride whether smashing through crud or cutting up corduroy.
The Kore 99 epitomizes what makes Head’s unique Kore construction so well adapted to irregular, off-trail conditions without compromising its capacity for holding on hard snow. The All-Mountain West category resides on the boundary line between hard-snow carvers and Big Mountain drifters. The Kore 99 is definitely from the latter camp of looser skis, but its thoughtful design never forgets that is has to meet a certain hard snow performance standard or Head won’t put its name on it.
Kore’s paramount intention is to make a lightweight construction that can be applied to wide skis without extra weight accompanying the extra width. The champion of this coup is Graphene™, carbon in a one-atom thick matrix that has the highest strength-to-weight ratio ever discovered, much less industrialized. Graphene allows the ski designer to increase flex resistance while decreasing overall weight, so it can be moved around the ski to achieve just the sort of snow feedback being sought. In the Kore series, Graphene is moved to the tip and tail where it adds structure but almost no weight, thereby lowering swingweight and making these wide skis easy to swivel.
One of the measures of a great ski is how it handles conditions for which it was not designed. The Kore 99 is built through-and-through to be an off-trail, loose-snow ski, yet it acquits itself on hardpack as if it were home sweet home.
The current Rustler 9 from Blizzard isn’t a little bit better than its predecessor; it’s much, much better than its namesake. Among its myriad changes is a slight boost in its overall width, which tipped the new Rustler 9 into the hotly competitive All-Mountain West genre. Instead of slipping in the standings, it rose from a middle-of-the-pack position among All-Mountain East models to near the top of the All-Mountain West category. No other new ski in the 2023/24 season made as great a leap up the performance ladder as the Rustler 9.
When all criteria are considered, the Rustler 9 remains a Finesse ski, but only by the slimmest of margins. It’s still a forgiving, easily steered ski, but it now has a reserve power supply accessible to any skier who can lay it on edge. A great all-terrain ski has to be able to smear or carve on command, a trick the Rustler 9 has down cold. The tip is strong and connected enough to engage at the top of the turn, but the ski can also find the edge by smearing sideways, then tipping the ski so the edge latches onto a carve midway through the turn. This facility at finding an edge anywhere along a mid-radius arc is one of the qualities that distinguish the best all-terrain skis from the also-rans.
If a single sobriquet could capture the essence of the Rustler 9, it would be “balanced.” Balanced between its facility at short turns or long. Balanced in its flex pattern. Balanced in its aptitude for handling adverse snow conditions. Balanced in its appetite for speed: it’s not trying to break the sound barrier, but it won’t wobble at any speed that’s safe in the resort environment. While it remains essentially a Finesse ski, the new Rustler 9 excels at all aspects of high performance, all-terrain skiing.
