Powder Landings (continued)

Here’s a few helpful steps incorporated with pro quotes:

1) Ride powder as much as possible so you know the feeling of how it rides. ”You’ve just gotta ride powder heaps, and a lot of switch.” Nick Brown, Burton pro rider.
2) You’ve definitely got to have your trick on lock in the park before you take it to a powder booter.” Anthony Leffelaar, Sapient pro rider.
3) “You have to be thinking of how you want to land throughout the whole spin.” Nick Hyne, Ride pro rider.
4) Throughout the trick your weight and body position should be exactly the same as if you were in the park. As your approaching the landing you weight should be evenly spread over both feet then:
5) “Just before you land, push the board forward under you so that all your weight is over the back foot.” Travis Rice.
6) Keep your body upright with the weight over the back foot until you’re riding away casually in the pow.

Your board and where you’re standing on it plays a big part. A bigger or wider board helps for sure. The more surface area in front of your front foot, the easier it is, and likewise a small tail will sink easier. Some people prefer a board with a softer nose to pull up. But before you set your bindings way back or buy a super directional board, what about landing tricks switch? Some tricks are much tougher to land in powder than others, switch landings being harder, and landing where the last 180 is blind, super difficult. That’s why you see a ton of Cab 5’s and frontside 5’s. Backside 5’s are pretty mellow in the park, but real tech once you’re in the deep stuff.
It’s not uncommon for a backcountry kicker session to end with no tricks ridden out, even for the “big dogs.” Landings also don’t last very long, depending on the type of jump, and number of crew hitting it – you may only get a handful of hits before you’re dropping into a spa pool like crater. There’s also the often sketchy run in and shovel-built kicker transition to deal with too, however landing into freshies is about the best feeling you can get snowboarding so just tighten your goggle strap and go for it!