A FREESKIER Buyer’s Guide regular, Nordica’s Santa Ana 100 returns with a redesigned core in 2019—all while maintaining the hard-charging attitude that had our testers grinning in delight. This year, the Santa Ana’s do-it-all poplar, beech and balsa wood core is sandwiched between two sheets of Titanal metal, delivering exceptional stability and responsiveness. A layer of prepreg carbon fiber also boosts rigidity without adding weight. Alex Golden used adjectives like “smooth, stable, silky, reactive and poppy,” to describe this updated offering from Nordica. Her testing sister Maddy Jimerson called it a “hero ski. It’s fun in all conditions, rips on groomers, charges on hardpack and provides surfy goodness in powder.”