Salomon Highpath Snowboard Review

Board: Salomon Highpath

Price: $699 (USD recommended retail)

Style: Freeride (bordering on all-mountain)

Flex Rating: Medium-Stiff

Flex Feel: Medium-Stiff (7/10)

Rating Score: 87.2/100

Compared to other Women’s Freeride Boards

Overview of the Highpath’s Specs

Check out the tables for the Highpath’s specs and available sizes.

Specs

Who is the Highpath Most Suited To?

The Highpath is best suited to a solid intermediate to advanced/expert rider who predominantly wants to carve bomb and find powder, when available and something that minimizes chatter in messy/harder snow. 

While it's not unforgivingly stiff or anything, it's on the more aggressive side, rather than playful, so you can't be too lazy with it. It's not something you have to ride hard all the time, but it feels better with speed under it than it does at slower speeds. 

Not for beginners. It's not forgiving of errors at slower speeds and likely won't inspire confidence in beginners. 

For those that don't ride much or any park (and if they do if they are hitting the jump line only) and want to optimize for speed and carving and have something that will hold up on powder days, this would make a good one-board-quiver. Or it could be a quiver board, paired with a more playful freestyle board and/or a more powder specialized board. 

THE Highpath IN MORE DETAIL

Bindings angles: +15/-15

Stance width: 20″ (510mm)

Stance Setback: Setback 0.8" (20mm)

Tester: Meira

Rider Height:  5'4 (163cm)

Rider Weight: 130lbs (58kg)

Rider Boot Size: US Women's 8 (Burton Limelite)

Bindings Used: Union Milan

Powder

Nothing really to test in on the day, but based on feel and specs, should be decent. 

While it only has subtle taper, it does have some taper and is otherwise directional in shape and with a 20mm setback on effective edge. It also has rocker in the profile before the contact points tip and tail. 

Carving

Good locked in feeling for carving. Holds onto a carve well, even at high speeds . Felt very controlled and fast. Best for long drawn out carves but does sharper carves well too.

Turning

Ease of Turns/Slashing: Fairly easy to initiate turns on and easy to slash out the tail. 

Maneuverability at slow speeds (nimbleness): Reasonably nimble at slower speeds, but does better at higher speeds. With a bit of effort, it can go pretty quick edge-to-edge at slower speeds, but not effortless. 

Catchiness: Overall not a very catchy feeling board. Feels smooth switching in and out of riding switch and generally changing edges. Slightly more catchy at slow speeds.

Speed

The Highpath felt fast and nice and stable riding at speed. It glides very nicely too. As alluded to above, it feels at it's best with at least moderate speeds under it, as opposed to slower speeds. It starts to hum when it picks up speed. 

Uneven Terrain

Crud: It smashed through mixed terrain, like crud, very smoothly. Felt like it was not bucked around very easily and didn't feel much chatter - quite a damp feeling board. 

Trees/Bumps: Good undulating through bumps and around moguls. Digs in well for moguls. Felt pretty good in trees too but does require some effort to get it whipping through quick turns at slower speeds. 

Jumps

It was OK for jumps, but wouldn't be the first board I'd choose, if I was planning on doing a lot of jumping in a day. And not what I would use if I was just starting out on jumps and looking to gain confidence jumping. 

Pop: There's a decent amount of pop there, but not massive amounts. The pop isn't super hard to access, but it does require some effort to extract it. 

Approach: Felt nice and stable for holding a line on approach, but didn't feel great when making adjustments or trying to speed check. 

Landing: Landings felt pretty solid. I wouldn't call it a stomper, but a good balance of solid, but also forgiving if you get it wrong. 

Side-hits: For side hits it felt hard on approach, particularly when making last second approaches to a side hit that catches your eye. And the pop took more effort to access than I'd prefer for sidehits. I like to just be there without having to really wind it up. 

Small jumps/Big jumps: It can do any size jump, but better for bigger jumps that you want to just hold your line and want a stable approach. More suitable to experienced jumpers who are confident picking their line and their speed and not as good for those starting out with jumping. 

Switch

Felt pretty good riding switch. It's relatively directional, but doesn't feel super weird riding in my backwards direction. And transitions to switch felt fine. They felt best when transitioning with a little bit of speed. If transitioning to switch when riding really slow, was still fine, but felt a little more catchy for slower speed transitions.  

Butters

It was better to butter than I thought, based on overall flex. It feels softer in the nose and tail than it does down the middle of the board. Not ideal and takes some effort, but not too difficult either.