This wide ski for the ripping ladies out there offers a whole lot to like. There’s quite a bit of love out there for the 2024 Faction Dancer 3X. A number of skiers in our test this year remarked on how it was one of their favorites that they tried. This is high praise given some of the stalwart skis out there, and it makes us think that there’s a lot more to these Dancer 3X skis than most people realize. Wide enough to be considered on the freeride spectrum but built and shaped like it belongs in the all-mountain realm, this is one of those skis that blurs the line of application. For a lot of skiers, this is a good thing as it expands the versatility and usefulness for skiers looking to mix it up out there on the hill. With great energy, a solid platform, and a wide floaty shape, this ski is an adept carver on-trail while remaining totally up for softer snow and deep lines in big mountain formats.

The poplar core is a great place to start with this ski as it blends lightweight and high energy very efficiently. They add their full-strength sidewall to the mix that provides a barrier between the inside of the sidewall and the outside of the core. This protects the core against damage as well as offering another vertical-style layer to boost performance and stiffness. The big thing with the Dancer 3X is that it uses two layers of titanal to provide stiffness, responsiveness, and stability. Sure, it adds a bit of weight, but that’s what you get with multiple sheets of metal. In the 172, the ski hits the scale at 1970 grams, which actually isn’t too terrible for a ski with this amount of surface area and volume. With weight comes power, and the way that they interlay the metal with the poplar wood makes the ski surprisingly stiff and energetic, especially for a 106. Most of our testers remarked that it felt quite a bit more agile than the width lets on.

Most of that is due to the cambered profile that provides a ton of energy to the ski. By building it into the camber, Faction is able to boost performance without adding more material. The 106 mm waist is bookended by 134 mm tips and 124 mm tails. This 10 mm drop in taper from end to end means the ski falls into that directional style, creating opportunities for skiers to point and shoot the ski down the fall line. The resulting 18-meter turn radius in the 172 goes a long way in making this Dancer 3X feel like a skier’s ski—willing and capable of being responsive and strong throughout the turn. There’s a rounder taper shape to this ski that leads to a decently spoony tip shape, and while there are more dramatic shapes out there, mixing the ski’s overall profile with the build puts the Dancer 3X in a unique space in the ski world.

Best suited for advanced and expert skiers looking to make the most out of a softer snow ski day, the 2024 Faction Dancer 3X is a wonderful women’s ski that has caused quite a stir around here. Multiple testers, when asked, what their favorite ski of the test was, reacted quickly that the Dancer 3X was, at the very least, one of the more surprising skis of the day. We always love hearing that—it mainly means that the energy of the ski stood out, and that’s a good thing for a ski this wide.