3 Cheers for Powder (& More American-Made Decks that Scorch the Soft Stuff)

Shred America (Shred White and Blue)—Yeah, winter is finally here and we’re back on board with another round of decks made by fellow shreds in the U.S.A. There’s been a lot of Colorado coverage, I know, but home is where the heart is… and where lots of killer snowboards are made.

Never Summer SL-R Snowboard

$499.99
Sizes [cm]: 151, 155, 158, 161, 164
neversummer.com
Made in Denver, Colo.

Never Summer’s Colorado-crafted SL-R features rocker & camber (R.C. Technology) and Vario Power Grip sidecut. It’s an extremely agile, all mountain freestyle deck that offers quick edge-to-edge response and maintains a forgiving tip and tail for smooth takeoffs and landings. NS retained the bomber construction but buttered things up with the right amount of rocker and a medium flex. This board excels from the park and pipe to the steep and deep.

Testers’ Take
• “Classic Never Summer battle-ready construction, great flex for freestyle.”
• “Floats in pow surprisingly well for a freestyle board.”
• “Freestyle? I call it fun-style.”

Venture Storm

$985
Sizes [cm]: 148-182.5
(available as a solid version or a split)
venturesnowboards.com
Made in Silverton, Colo.

Emblazoned on the Storm, as well as the rest of Venture’s boards is a photograph of an actual snow crystal taken by Wilson “Snowflake” Bentley. That is the only delicate component of their bomber-built boards, handcrafted in Silverton, Colo. Buttressed by p-Tex sidewalls and a poplar / ash bookmatched core (Venture slices vertically laminated blocks of wood in half and reassembles them to make full cores with consistent edge to edge density and stiffness) the Storm is available in a split and solid version, and waist widths from 24-27cm.

Testers’ Take
• “Very fun to ride—be the star in your own slasher film—REE! REE! REE!”
• “This board moves like a disc jockey’s hands at a rave; super quick.”
• “Don’t be too pushy or you’ll end up on your ass.”

Voilé Mojo

$895
Sizes [cm]: 154, 161, 166, 171
voile-usa.com
Made in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains

Sized for men and women, the Mojo cast a spell on testers this year, dominating in powder and earning high marks for ease of turn initiation with the same directional shape, dimensions and traditional camber as last year. Testers of both sexes succumbed to the Mojo’s magic.

Testers’ Take
• “Springy, sprightly; picks its way down steep slopes and is most responsive to short radius turns.”
• “Gets the Mojo flowin’ in wide-open pow.”
• “The Mojo is light underfoot and has a smooth torsional flex; it’s tough to beat for technical terrain where quick, reliable turns are a necessity.”

Hit the Deck! Domestic Decks 2010 – USA-Made Boards, Round 2

Here it is Shred Nation, part two of the All-American star spangled snowboard test. This week, three more great reasons to put your money where your mountains are, and get some certified USA-made carve beneath your feet.

Unity Dominion

$480
Sizes [cm]: 159, 164, 168, 180 / 160wide, 165wide, 170wide
unitysnowboards.com
Made in Silverthorne, Colorado

Unity’s Dominion surprised testers with its ability to be nimble quick, but with a bulldog’s tenacity after tearing up everything from untracked steeps to blown-out crud. It’s stiffer in the tail than nose for better float, and features a carbon fiber wrapped core, creating carbon “X’s” under each foot that are aimed at increasing responsiveness. The Dominion had testers feeling downright subservient to its mountain muscle after a couple runs. They couldn’t believe how well it slashed powder up high, and then handled the crud down low.

TESTERS’ TAKE:

• “This board did almost everything better than expected.”

• “Very lively for a p-Tex sidewalled board, quick turning, even in the trees. Not the lightest because of its construction, but you’ll forget that after one turn.”
•“The board gets Ginsu in the crud, and is awesome in powder,” said another.

Gnu B Pro C2BTX [Women’s]

$499
Sizes [CM]: 146, 149, 152, 155
gnu.com
Made in Sequim, Washington

The B-Pro C2BTX (C2BTX=a new version of rocker, where there’s camber at the tip-and-tail but not between the bindings, paired with Magne Traction [serrated-like edges]) is an all-terrain machine. It’s also on the planet kinder side (which should make you smile), featuring a Bio-Plastic topsheet made from castor beans, and Mervin’s “Eco” aspen core. Barrett Christy donates of portion of the proceeds from her pro model’s sales to “Boarding for Breast Cancer.”

TESTERS’ TAKE:

• “I’ve never ridden a board with such an easy flex that holds up in the steeps.”
• “Holds a very solid edge, and keeps magnet-like contact with the snow.”
• “This board was like a mountain lion in the crud and variable conditions—great stability!”

Venture Euphoria Splitboard

$985
Sizes [cm]: 146-170.5
venturesnowboards.com
Made in Silverton, Colorado

Fully rockered for the first time, Venture’s Euphoria splitboard scored off the charts for soft-snow performance, due to a soft flex between the bindings and a fat nose and tail. Venture’s boards are tested in the sacred steeps hunting ground known as Silverton—even the local bar is named POW (Pride of the West). The results are meticulously manufactured decks built to endure.

TESTERS’ TAKE:

• “Strap in, put the iPod on Lionel Ritchie’s ‘Easy Like Sunday Morning’ and slash every piece of powder you can find.”
• “One thing is for certain, this baby needs some room to roam. For wide-open terrain and powder bowls it can’t be beat.”

Domestic Decks: 2010 USA-made Snowboards

I don’t know if this is the “first ever” American-made Snowboard Review. But let’s just say it is anyway. There are a lot of things to like about these boards—from bomber, detail-oriented construction to eco-smart design. Not to mention they’re built in our backyards. If a product makes the cut for this review, it has earned the SWB stamp of approval.

These aren’t just arbitrary grab-bag picks based on graphics and gratifying advertisers. Truth is, this past March we had a crew of testers romp and stomp on over 70 boards for a week at Crested Butte Mountain Resort as part of Backcountry Magazine’s Annual Snowboard Test. I’ve managed and written BCM’s Snowboard Review for the last 4 years as their “Rider in Chief”, and we have hyper-intelligent, ripping testers that make selecting the best decks easy as… riding pow.

We’ll post three boards per week until we run out, or it takes too much time away from snowboarding. Let us know if there are any American-made boards you want to see reviewed, and we’ll do our best to put them through the paces. Ride on… —Mike Horn Read more

Fred Pabst was a ski bum

My dog likes cold beer, beer snow cones, pretty much beer anything. No, I’m not the weird guy that gets my dog wasted. She just likes a couple sips when hanging with boys, and who could resist a PBR longneck that sat in the snowbank all night, and erupted into a fountain of slow-moving beer slurpy?

Pabst Blue Ribbon, better known in suds-savoring circles as PBR, is the flagship beer in many mountain roosts (and doghouses), to an almost cliché level. Why? Mostly because it’s cheap; cans pack into the backcountry well (especially if prewrapped in a coozie); and PBR is readily available in most every liquor store or local’s fridge. But it wasn’t until I made some south-facing slush turns at Bromley Ski Area in Manchester, Vermont that I learned the pioneering side of Pabst.

Milwaukee brewer Frederick Pabst founded the beer—Pabst Blue Ribbon. His grandson, also Fred Pabst, was the snow pioneer, an old-school ski bum that started making turns in the early 1900’s, and, after leaving the family brew business, founded a string of ski areas from the Midwest to the Northeast. Including southern Vermont’s Bromley in the mid-30’s, which was picked by Pabst for its south-facing terrain and proximity to a relatively populated area.

I stopped by a couple springs ago while working on a story about Vermont’s Route 100 Corridor—sort of the eastern skier’s superhighway. We hit Bromley around 1 p.m. for a few runs, and the corn was ripe as apples in October. We forgot sunscreen, but remembered the beer. Bromley is, after all, a beer-drinkers mountain, prime for carving down silky, fall-line groomers on a 40-degree day, T-Tops off the hot rod, sunglasses on, and wind blowing through your hair.

Picture that the next time you pop open a PBR. Just keep an eye on your beer, or Kaya might sneak up behind you and score.