The Head Kore 91 W is either the best women’s ski for off-trail skiing, or the best off-trail ski for women, take your pick. Don’t detect a difference? Neither do we. The properties that make the Kore 91 W a great women’s ski and those that make it ideally suited for off-piste conditions are the same.
No matter which side of this equation you’re on, the Kore 91 W got a shot in the arm last year when Head incorporated several new elements into the Kore design. First, it redecorated the interior, tearing out artificial Koroyd honeycomb and replacing it with its blended Karuba/poplar wood core. The switch to all-wood makes a difference in the feedback the skier receives from the snow, so the ski feels supportive but not fussy about how it’s handled.
Whether you’re taking your first strides into the sidecountry – or perhaps the backcountry? – or you earned your off-trail stripes long ago, the Kore 91 W is a gas to have along for the ride. You’ll be amazed by the amount of energy you can save by skiing the right ski off-trail. The Kore 91 W reigns supreme in this department. For its many energy-saving attributes, we award the Kore 91 W a Silver Skier Selection.
Fischer has spent the last few seasons behind the R&D curtain re-imagining its entire Ranger collection of off-trail models. The result is a family of hybrids that blend the two branches of the previous Ranger clan, the surfy FR series and the more connected Ti models. All the new Rangers get a dose of .5mm-thick Titanal underfoot married to a fairly loose tip and tail. As befits the family name, they all have a decidedly off-trail bias.
Fans of earlier Rangers will find the new series are more closely related behaviorally to the easy-to-smear FR models of yore than to the metal-laden Ti fraternity. The lighter weight (all poplar) core of the Ranger 90 suggests it might be a good option for living a double life as an in-resort/backcountry, all-purpose partner-in-climb. Its Aeroshape exterior further enables foot steering by reducing resistance when rotating a flat ski.
The Ranger 90 encourages its navigator to assume a centered stance and take advantage of a double-rockered baseline that makes it easier to drift to an edge than ride a continuous rail. There are skiers who swoon over this facility at swiveling, but Realskiers’ scoring criteria puts more emphasis on carving accuracy in every phase of the turn, while the Ranger 90 concentrates its gripping power underfoot. If carving is more your thing, Fischer’s RC One 86 GT is one of the most powerful and accurate trench-diggers in the All-Mountain East genre. The Ranger 90 derives from the opposite side of the carve/drift schism.
Fischer maintains that your skis don’t know your gender, and our ladies’ limited experience with the RC One 82 GT tends to support this contention. Both Clare Martin from Peter Glenn and Lara Hughes Allen from the Mt. Rose Ski School raved about it, despite having very different ski bios. For Clare, who works retail in the southeast, the RC One 82 GT was a huge step up from her norm, liberating her to make turns for the first time that the Level-3 Lara could make in her sleep. Their verbatim reports indicate just how large a slice of the women’s ski population the RC One 82 GT might serve. (Note the humongous size range).
Lara Hughes-Allen wrote, “This ski skied like a very tuned-down GS ski. It held the turn well, even on very firm conditions. This ski felt versatile in a variety of turn shapes and sizes as well as snow conditions. Its stiffness and edging mean that it will run away with you a bit if you’re not balanced and dynamic over the ski.”
The Black Pearl 82 underwent the TrueBlend make-over last season, a fairly complex process given that the model’s sidecut remained a constant. What changed was how high-density beech and low-weight poplar are scattered across the core to create a perfectly balanced flex for every size. Once committed to this level of customization, Blizzard went ahead and synchronized the baseline, sidecut and flex for every length, which in the case of the Black Pearl 82 is a lot (145cm – 173cm).
A key component in the Woman Specific Design of the Pearl 82 is a dash of Titanal underfoot which helps this off-trail design hold its own on hardpack. Combined with the new flex pattern, the Titanal’s effect on edge grip extends beyond its actual dimensions. While this still doesn’t convert the Pearl 82 into a full-on carver – where is the elevated platform or the tight-waisted shape? – it won’t wimp-out on groomers.
