Just last season, 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 rest on its considerable laurels, but 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, which showed up in the guise of slightly improved scores for both Finesse and Power properties.
Underneath the new urethane topsheet the 2023 Kore 99 is the same ski, with the same behavior profile, that knocked our collective socks last year. The Kore 99, then and now, 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.
Let’s take a look at the off-trail adaptations first. Kore’s paramount intention is to make a lightweight construction that can be applied to wide skis without extra weight accompanying with 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.
To maintain the snow feel expert skiers expect, Head uses a Karuba and poplar wood core, sandwiched between carbon and glass laminates. Among the minor changes introduced across the Kore line this season, a Koroyd honeycomb that had been part of the internal structure has been swapped out with Karuba, a superlight wood usually found in backcountry models. (The other notable change for this season is the size splits in the new line, which allow skiers to more precisely dial in the length that fits them.)
Three other features contribute to the Kore 99’s shocking ease at negotiating battered crud fields and tight tree lines. One, the shoulders on the new Kore series have been rounded off, so the ski slips sideways almost without resistance, a huge plus when a wide ski has to be tossed around an obstacle. Two, the center section of sidecut is essentially straight, facilitating a swiveled turn finish that is the norm in deep snow. And three, a flex pattern that promotes playfulness and rebound, which reduces the effort required to make turns in tough terrain. Less effort means more fun and a longer ski day.
The trick to adapting to the Kore 99’s lighter chassis is that there is no trick. Don’t step into one for the first time thinking you need to adjust your usual game to fit its temperament, or that because it’s lightweight you better tread gingerly downhill. Just go skiing. If Jim Schaffner of Start Haus, who is strength and power on skis personified, can ride it hard without folding it in two, so can you. Here’s what Schaffner had to say after essaying the original Kore 99 in wind-battered crud: “Very easy to ski, with a comfortable balance point. Playful and versatile, it’s easy to roll up on edge. Very wide performance/snow condition range for 99mm. Another home run for blending wider ski versatility with groomed snow performance. A solid player in the 100mm-waisted category.”
After a couple of runs on the 2023 Kore 99, Schaffner’s scores went up appreciably, as did his level of enthusiasm for the new 99’s versatility, particularly on unfavorably hard conditions. “Glassy smooth, lively, fun, fun, fun!!!” reported an elated Schaffner, who had been on a 177cm, a relatively short ski for someone who can handle a 191cm. “Hard to pick a winner for versatility between the 99 and the 93. Another top performer in the one-ski quiver club.”
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. Loosen up the surface even a little bit and the Kore 99 comes alive.
Unlike some of its burlier bros in the All-Mountain West genre, the Kore 99 feels quick to the edge and reactive off it. “It didn’t ski like a short (180cm), fat ski,” writes Bobo’s Theron Lee. “It was very nimble yet very stable at speed and able to follow terrain quite well. The biggest surprise was the width: it did not feel like a 99mm width, it felt much narrower.”
For making high performance, all-terrain skiing accessible with less exertion, we again award the Kore 99 a Silver Skier Selection.
