2026 Dynastar M-Cross 82

With a fresh new look but the same great build and shape, Dynastar’s 2026 M-Cross 82 is a great choice for advanced skiers who spend most of their time in an on-trail format. By blending a smooth ride with a fun-loving shape, the M-Cross 82 is a highly useful ski that can hold up to moderately aggressive skiing in a shorter radius format. There’s been a solid move lately to shorter turns in skis, and this M-Cross is a great example. Many skiers enjoy having the wider shovel, narrower tail, and grippy waist for on-trail performance with a versatile character. If we’re being honest with ourselves as skiers, we all spend most of our time on groomed terrain, so it behooves us to have skis that are aligned with the conditions that we find ourselves in most of the time. Quick and agile, yet smooth and powerful, the Dynastar M-Cross 82 is an awesome all-mountain ski that has strong front side characteristics. This mix of attributes is very attractive and useful for a great deal of skiers.

For a relatively “intermediate” ski, this has a lot going for it. The construction is the big story here. In the 2026 M-Cross 82, it all starts with Dynastar’s Hybrid Core 2.0. This futuristic-sounding build starts with a poplar core with three directions of wood fiber. Rather than using a lot of glue to adhere different stringers of wood together, Dynastar mills and joins their wood laminates together using friction and pressure. We’re getting interlocking laminates of wood to give the ski a unique feel and a good sense of power while the hybrid aspect of the ski uses polyurethane along the sides of the ski. This PU material gives the ski a smooth and silent character, and it complements the energy and pop of the bonded poplar laminates. On top of the core, we get a unidirectional fiberglass laminate and an H-Tech layer. This upper layer provides more power with the arms, keeping the forebody and tail of the ski firmly planted on the ground and ready for the next turn. In the 176, the ski sits on the scale at 1600 grams per ski, which is on the light side—one of the benefits of having a ski with PU and a lack of adhesive. Tester Nate Gardner notes that it’s a “quick turning ski with good balance. It functions well as an all-terrain ski for intermediate and advanced skiers who like making shorter turns in softer snow.”

From a footprint perspective, the M-Cross 82 stands out from the crowd. As far as shaping is concerned, this ski has a lot of interesting and unique properties. The shovel is the overarching aspect of the shape, as the 129 mm tip is wide for a ski this narrow underfoot. This leads to strong initiation, and it’s a good thing the ski has enough torsional stiffness to generate those higher edge angles in the turn. At 82 mm underfoot in the 176, the ski is very agile and quick from edge to edge, with the drop in taper being substantive enough to make for more of a pin tail style of ski. That is, wherever you point it, it’ll go, and it won’t hook up in the back side when pushed. The ski is a lot smoother in this manner. That same 176 produces a 14-meter turn radius, so it’s on the short side for an all-mountain ski. With minimal rocker in either the tips or the tails, this M-Cross 82 feeds off of the long camber underfoot. With the long camber we get a long effective edge. With the increased contact in the snow, we’re getting a smoother feel overall. This pairs well with the build to provide a unique ski experience for on-trail carving and some off-piste adventures. Tester Bob St.Pierre was “impressed with the upper-level feel of this ski despite its reputation as a mid-level ski. It really engages well on groomers and has a lot of pep in the tail. Overall, it’s very fun and rewarding with minimal effort.”

There’s a big range of abilities and applications here. Best when used by advanced skiers, this M-Cross 82 also has intermediate accessibility to it. That mostly comes in the form of quickness due to the waist. You don’t have to rail carved turns to enjoy the full scope of performance in the ski, giving it a nice range for skier styles and levels. We thoroughly enjoyed our time these past years on the M-Cross 82, as it brings to light the need for and usefulness for a ski like this. Ease of use is a big thing for a lot of skiers, and that comes through for sure with these skis.