The search for the funnest, surfiest, slashiest snowboard

I’m on the hunt for the funnest, surfiest, slashiest snowboard there is!

I’ve always enjoyed playing around at the side of the trails, and finding pockets of strange snow (who doesn’t?), and this year I’m on a mission to perfect “the slash.” That got me thinking: what is the funnest, surfiest snowboard out there? Which one would be an absolute blast in all conditions, skating and surfing down the hill?

This list is probably similar to a list I’d put together for powder boards, except I’m leaving out those boards that are too powder-specific. There are plenty of amazing powder boards, with all sorts of shapes… and maybe next year I’ll get the chance to go shopping for one 🙂

Below are some of the candidates. I’m nowhere close to being able to decide – can you help me?! If so, please post up in the comments.

K2 Cool Bean

This may have been the board that fueled my current obsession with finding the ultimate surfy/slashy snowboard. While stuck on a chairlift at Stevens Pass, I saw a guy coming down on this board, and was blown away by how little board there was behind his back foot! I figured it would either be terrible to ride, or awesome-super-surfy, and went looking for short, swallowtail boards when I got home.

Most of the reviews say that the board excels in deep powder, but is totally fun and surfy in all conditions. And I was super stoked on it, until I saw this video from the Good Ride:

These guys are saying that it suffers horribly outside of clean, untracked goodness, which knocks down the claims of it being an awesome all-rounder. Whom to believe? I’m not sure. Maybe I need to track down that guy at Stevens Pass and see what he thinks. Ridden one yourself? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments!!

Price: $500

Lengths: only available in 144cm

Available from: Evo, Amazon, lots of other places (though it looks to be sold out in many of them)

Capita Slush Slasher

If I was going purely by name, this would be the one! Sounds pretty slashy and non-pow-specific to me!

I’m not a huge fan of the look of the board, but its design sounds like it might be a winner. The philosophy was to create a board that’s just fun and surfy, with no other pretensions. From CAPiTA’s website:

No snowboard in the history of snowboarding was designed to make party like these bad boys. From mid-winter to the spring or summer, if the sun is shining and there’s something to slash, these babies want to do the slashin’.

Check out what whitelines.com has to say:

Laybacks and slashes on the piste edges are the order of the day, thanks to a heavily set-back stance that grants this board a loose, surfy feel – in fact I’d be tempted to re-christen it the ‘Soup Surfer’: a quiver stick for those porridgey April afternoons.

This actually sounds like the winner. And at under $400 ($370 to be precise) it’s well within budget (with money left for fluoro shades and Pina Coladas). Anyone ridden one?

(Only problem: it’s out of stock everywhere!! I’m not the only one who thought it sounded awesome.)

Next up…

There are a bunch more boards on my short-list! Still to come:

• Flow Darwin
• Burton Fish
• Salomon Derby
• Yes 420
• LibTech Round Nose Fish

And a few honorable mentions:

• Korua Puzzle
• Jones Hovercraft
• Jones Stormchaser
• K2 CarveAir
• Yes 20/20