Tested: Yes Warca £569
Inspired by company co-owners Romain de Marchi, DCP and JP Solberg – three of the heaviest hitters in backcountry freestyle – Yes have been quietly changing the game with their board design since day one.
The Warca is Designed by JP Solberg and is aimed at those who want more support when stepping it up in the soft snow, offering the increased float of a powder board with the nimble feel of a fully cambered twin tip freestyler.
The secret to how they’ve managed this lies in two simple words – short wide.
The thinking behind short wide is all about float and volume. Traditional design thinking for powder snowboards is to make the board longer to give you more volume and in turn more float in soft snow. The short wide concept turns that idea on its head and instead gives you a shorter board than you would normally ride – but crucially, it is made wider, which gives you the same volume and therefore the same float in power.
The idea came from surfing, but Yes were the first snowboard brand to utilise the idea with their iconic 420 board. The advantage of a small board is that it's much more nimble, both in deep snow and also in the air, meaning that freestyle inspired pow riders can perform in the backcountry, opening up all kind of new terrain.
The core is made for a blend of three woods – poplar for power and durability, paulownia for lightweight strength (with a higher strength-to-weight ration than Balsa!) and two bamboo stringers running the full length for increased pop and response.
The Yes Warca is a whole lot of fun wherever you ride it. It’s especially powerful and excels in soft snow, but the Tapered Underbite profile means that you can still ride the board almost as well backwards as you can forwards. If you’ve got the legs for it, this is a perfect freestyle inspired all mountain and powder board.
Sizes available: 148, 150, 153, 155
