How can a ski as narrow-waisted as the Kore 87 come across as the most versatile ski in its wide-body family?  After all, the Kore collection is 100% an off-trail creation; its avatar should be the Kore 111, not this string bean.

The improbable polyvalence of the Kore 87 is partly explained by a sleight of hand Head pulled off in the make-up of the narrowest Kore models just last year. Taking advantage of Graphene’s ability to affect flex without a commensurate effect on mass, Head beefed up the Kore 87 to account for the certainty that it will spend much of its life on groomers. Its power quotient might have gone up another tick last year with the substitution of poplar and Karuba for Koroyd, which subtly enhanced its feedback on hard snow.

This year, Head coated all the Kores with a sheath of urethane, mostly to protect the top and sides from minor nicks and scratches, with the added benefit of further smoothing out the ride. Our stats suggest the new topskin had less effect on the Kore 87 than it did on wider Kore models, but no matter what its contribution is to the ski’s overall behavior, the experience the Kore 87 delivers remains remarkable for its trustworthy edge grip and quickness on and off the edge.   Renowned bootfitter Jim Schaffner dubbed the 2023 version of the Kore 87, “Fun, easy skiing, yet enough high performance to hold well on harder snow. This is a very good execution of a one-ski quiver ski for the aging crowd!”

The improvements made to the Kore’s capacities on brittle hardpack don’t seem to have diminished its inherent talent for off-trail travel. The sidecut is fairly straight underfoot, so it’s simple to swivel, an action made even more greasy by a beveled top edge that slices sideways without resistance.  But the primary contributor to the Kore 87’s ease of operation off-trail is its ethereal light weight.

You use your feet a lot off-trail as you pick a path through trees, moguls and other skiers’ tracks. This often entails picking up your feet, sometimes suddenly and violently. This is when the Kore 87 shines, for it can be moved around on a whim, seemingly without any effort at all. An energy reserve that would otherwise sputter out before noon can last until tea time.

Of course, by then the powder will be long gone, but aside from retaining a little smear at the top of the turn, the Kore 87 won’t miss it, as it transitions seamlessly from drifting to edging. The connection that starts right behind the shovel holds cleanly throughout the short-to-medium radius turns it prefers.

As the Kore concept has proven in its every iteration, when the name of the game is off-trail versatility, Kores come to play. The whole point of the All-Mountain East genre is expanding the skier’s playing field, opening up access to the ungroomed mountain where its real magic lies.  For off-piste playgrounds like moguls, trees and pucker-tight chutes, the Kore 87’s crazy-light construction and narrow silhouette allow it to slither through spaces where bigger boards get stuck.

The most common refrain on our testers’ reports was reference to the Kore 87’s suitability as a “one-ski quiver,” a testament to its huge performance range.  It can even be coaxed into short-radius turns, which it can access by swiveling in soft snow or carving on the firmer stuff. It’s quicker on and off the edge than its fatter kin and it’s the lightest Kore because there’s less of it. All in, the evidence points to the Kore 87 as the most versatile model in an outstanding series.

For its uncanny ability to make skiing any condition easier, we again award the Kore 87 a Silver Skier Selection.