It’s not all fun and games at Gear Test Week. Our 43 testers—32 skiers and 11 splitboarders—hit the slopes at Utah’s Powder Mountain with the dawn’s early light and don’t go to bed ’til the day’s reviews are complete. From carving smooth powder turns to busting through crud and shredding corduroy, each tester aims to test eight products per day, a task that provided us with more than 1,100 individual reviews to craft the 2019 Gear Guide, available now and packed with tester feedback.
From the 236 products we ran up and down the mountain, each tester nominated their personal favorites. Here are their picks and profiles, so you know who’s doing the dirty work and what they liked best.
Lawson Yow photo bombs at the 2019 Gear Test Week. [Photo] Matt Kiedaisch
AGE 31, 5 FEET 10 INCHES, 155 LBS.
Crested Butte, Colo.
CURRENT SETUP
Weston Big Chief splitboard, Spark Arc binding, K2 Aspect boots
GEAR PREFERENCE
“I like a big line hunter that can handle steep, gnarly pow.”
PRIOR KHYBER XTC
$949 – priorsnow.com| LENGTHS: 150, 153, 156, 160, 165, 170 | WEIGHT: 6.7 lbs. (160)
“This is a board for a real Rocky Mountain splitboarder—it’s stiff in all the right places and flexy and responsive when you need it to be. It’s a stompasaurus shrex—an all mountain dominator.”
VENTURE CARBON PARAGON
$1,189 – venturesnowboards.com | LENGTHS: 156, 160, 161, 165 | WEIGHT: 6.7 lbs. (156)
“For powerful, experienced and confident shredders who like to keep up with the rowdiest two-plankers and it skins well enough to get to the top of the lines it’s qualified to go down.”
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