What to know: This guide includes the 15 best unisex and women’s snowboards, narrowed down from a crop of over 100 snowboards (44 from this year) ridden by expert testers in the Sierra, Wasatch, and Rockies. The overall favorite is the unisex Salomon Highpath for its versatile, stable ride with tons of pop. In women’s specific shapes, our test crew was most amped on the CAPiTA Artemis, an all-mountain freeride charger that loves to straightline.
Whether you’re an intermediate poking into the park or a veteran freerider straightlining a technical face, having the right snowboard under your boots feels like a cheat code. Tricks come easier, sketchy landings get stomped, and shred homies get left in a powder cloud of dust, confusion, and shame. Every season, our team of diehard snowboard testers hunts for these magic snowboards—decks that inspire confidence and encourage riders to level up.
After months of testing new unisex, men’s, and women’s models (and comparing them to last season’s favorites), our crew landed on this list of the 15 best snowboards of 2027. Sizes: 147, 151, 153, 156, 159, 159W, 162, 162W, 165W cm (unisex) Genre: All-mountain Profile: Rock Out Camber (raised flat section between the feet, rockered nose and tail) Pros and Cons + Stable and capable + Tons of pop and ample float + Surprisingly versatile – Too demanding for intermediates or lighter riders Salomon pro-slash-engineer and 2026 Natural Selection champ Nils Mindnich heavily revamped the hard-charging Highpath for this season, and the result was our favorite snowboard of 2027. The biggest visible difference from last year’s board is that the squared nose and moontail have been reshaped into a more classic, rounded, popsicle-stick-like silhouette, which seems to ride and float switch better.
Testers were stoked by the homage to traditional silhouettes, and especially stoked that the Highpath handled switch riding, jumping, and landings extremely well for a tapered directional shape. The most notable changes, however, are under the hood. Salomon’s board brainiacs swapped in a lighter, springier core, adjusted the core profile to improve stability, and added basalt reinforcements to amplify snap and dampening.
The result: The Highpath is responsive and powerful without any twitchiness. The build complements a hybrid camber profile with a raised flat section between the feet and a rockered nose and tail. Combined with a quadratic sidecut and thinner core at the waist, the Highpath delivers prodigious snap, toothy edgehold, and fluid carves.
One of our most aggressive testers compared the Highpath to a Tacoma with winter tires: “Take it anywhere, you’re guaranteed to have a good time.” Consensus was that the Highpath’s stiff flex requires a veteran’s input, and lighter riders or intermediates should look elsewhere. Testers also agreed that the only thing more fun than watching Nils put the Highpath through its paces in the backcountry was riding the directional, do-it-all deck ourselves. Sizes: 148, 151, 154, 156, 157W, 158, 160W, 161 cm (unisex) Genre: Freestyle/All-mountain Freestyle Profile: Camber sandwiched by flat sections at the nose and tail Pros and Cons + Poppy and fun in the park + Predictable + Durable + More capable than expected out of the park – Excells at jumps more than jibs (minor gripe) ThirtyTwo is best known for boots, but the T32M knocked our socks off.
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