Behind the Scenes at Our 2022 Snowboard Test
How do we decide which snowboards earn coveted slots in our Winter Buyer鈥檚 Guide? Take a virtual tram lap with a few of our Utah testers.
国产吃瓜黑料 tests upward of 30 snowboards every winter, but only a few wind up featured in the magazine. How do we pick which boards make the cut? Normally, we have a weeklong test and invite riders from far and wide to put all the industry鈥檚 new boards through the wringer. This past year was anything but normal, however, so we switched things up. Our test director converted his garage at the bottom of Utah鈥檚 Little Cottonwood Canyon into a gear library, with stacks of boards lined up and ready to rip. Then he sounded the horns in the Wasatch, rallying an army of local riders, who came to check boards out for up to two weeks at a time and then fill out review forms. We repeated this process over the course of the season, and聽our favorite boards of 2022 rose to the top. Scroll through the photos, below, to enjoy a few testers in action during one of our last days this spring at Snowbird.
Jerrica Lavooy, a first-year tester and Cottonwood Canyon regular, dials in her stance at the base of Snowbird. Some testers always rock the same stance on every board, while others adjust binding angles or stance width based on the board size and style. It鈥檚 all a matter of preference. The key to testing snowboards back-to-back is simply a consistent methodology.
Jacob Levine, a longtime tester, coach, and the director of Team Utah Mountain Sports, knows that a board is only as fast as its wax job. Here, he reduces variables by applying his decades of expertise鈥攁nd a bit of elbow grease鈥攖o four of our favorite rides. From left to right: the , , , and .
Levine spends his winter coaching the Wasatch鈥檚 best up-and-coming freeride and freestyle snowboarders. Here, he shows his pupils how to properly combine the two worlds by bringing freestyle flavor to a big-mountain setting. A shorter, wider directional deck, was an ideal blade for this terrain and Levine鈥檚 playful approach.
If we had to pick a single lift for all of our snowboard testing, Snowbird鈥檚 iconic tram would likely reign supreme. After a ten-minute climb up 2,900 vertical feet, the tram deposits you atop a sampling of the Wasatch鈥檚 finest riding. In a single run, you can link technical steeps and open groomers, then pop stoke-worthy side hits or cruise through a mini terrain park. World-class freeride lines are within reach if you鈥檙e willing to hike or traverse for them.
Dedicated tester Jackson Webber reaps the rewards of a long, excruciating, and not so snowboard-friendly traverse: hot spring pow moments before it鈥檚 overcooked in the apron of a tight couloir. He鈥檚 ripping the , our favorite all-mountain board for 2022.
It鈥檚 imperative to test boards across varied snow conditions. A few hundred yards below his hot-pow-smeared couloir, Webber sniffs out a patch of cold, protected powder in the shade.
Levine brings the heat with a surf-inspired backside hack.
Lavooy rips through the trees on Never Summer鈥檚 durable, buoyant , which was one of our top picks for intermediate riders looking for easy turns and ample float in powder. At the end of the day, this is what our test鈥攁nd snowboarding in general鈥攊s all about: riding fast, charging hard, and having fun with your friends.